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[Manveru Taurënér]

Did Toady actually say that?  It would explain some things (like why gobs don't eat or drink) but that's a major change from what I would have thought.  I hope it doesn't exclude the possibility of the occasional friendly goblin.

From DFtalk 19:

In the currently released version, in world gen the demon 'escapes from the underworld'. That has certain implications, right, about existing holes and stuff. So we're messing around with that, trying to come up with some different solutions that meter the flow, so having the demon in control of a portal, for instance. In a lot of Threetoe's stories the goblins are from the underworld, so I think we're going to relate that to it, to make it have more of a goblinesque feel for the current portal that the demon's controlling, so it doesn't just pour through with demons. We already have these giant spires down in the underworld that were filled with demons, but perhaps they'll be filled with goblins, they're, kind of, bastions from the demons or something like that. We're just playing around with different stuff, we'll see what happens.

Doesn't sound like it's necessarily set in stone for all worlds come the myth and magic stuff, but it seems to be the general idea for "vanilla" goblins at least.

Relating to some of the recent discussion here this might be of interest too:

Rainseeker:   Yeah, will all the goblins suddenly descend on you, or will it be just, like, some, the warriors?
Toady:   Yeah, I think the thing is that a lot of the goblins just aren't going to give a crap. I mean, if they hear a scream that's probably commonplace. They're just not going to care, sometimes, but if you're too brazen about it, there are too many screams, or you make yourself visible to too many people then you'll have to deal with it. I mean, we were thinking of running it with different groups, because the goblins don't get along, they're not supposed to get along with each other, it's supposed to be the power of the demon that keeps them under control and able to take over a bunch of civilizations instead of just descending into violence among the goblins themselves, so there are going to be different groups of goblins that don't care about the other groups of goblins and I think the only thing keeping it together is going to be the demon's secret police, set up with goblins and worse, like undead things and other kind of horrible night creatures and stuff.
Rainseeker:   'Hey, you! No fighting, okay? Thank you. I will suck your blood if you don't stop fighting.'
Toady:   That's right, and those humans that they're kidnapping, that grow up and so on, can bring some order to the situation.
Rainseeker:   'Okay, guys. Let's talk about our feelings now. Let's not raise our voices, just use healing words.'
Toady:   That's right. That's why we bring the elves in there, and if they don't like them, they keep mouthing off, then they'll eat them. The idea would be, then, that those guys would be people you absolutely don't want to be spotted by because they could actually marshal an organized resistance. So if you can sneak up behind the human and shank him a few times before he can alert anybody then you'll just have a bunch of goblins wandering around and then it won't be a big deal.
Rainseeker:   Or perhaps making friends with him?
Toady:   Yeah. Aren't you nice? Maybe he'll want to overthrow the demon with you.
Rainseeker:   Exactly. 'Hey, do you want to, like, leave the goblins? We could do this together.'
Toady:   Yeah, or perhaps he'll just sell you out when you get to the throne room.
Rainseeker:   Yeah, but that would be an interesting thing, if you could try.
Toady:   It is going to be something that we mess with sometime, maybe not this time but just the fact that the goblins might not actually attack you, with this racial enmity, or whatever, right? I mean, we had some of our silly power goals and stuff where you actually brought them a child from the village, or whatever, it's like you're being a freelance snatcher, and in that case you should be able to bargain with them, as long as they see the benefit in keeping you alive rather than killing you then, you know ...

[SixOfSpades]

Actually, I personally think (heresy of heresies!) that ALCOHOL_DEPENDENT is also needlessly gamey and would be better off replaced by just making the average dwarf have high immoderation, rather than treating them like some kind of alcohol-powered robot or whatever, but that's just me.

You're not alone. I, too, believe it would work far better purely as a focus-based need, especially because it's never made sense to have newborns drink whiskey, and to have only invalids drink water. Dwarves can (and should) enjoy frequently drinking alcohol, but it shouldn't be an absolute biological requirement by any means. As to whether their industrial livers could survive drinking nothing but booze, I'd say that depends on the type of booze: Beer yes, wine maybe, spirits probably not. Maybe each type could reduce thirst by a different amount.
I would also suggest that dwarves have an additional need to be underground, at least periodically. Dwarves are so powerful in comparison to the other races, it's only fitting they should have an additional handicap or two.

Did Toady actually say that?  It would explain some things (like why gobs don't eat or drink) but that's a major change from what I would have thought.  I hope it doesn't exclude the possibility of the occasional friendly goblin.

I agree--while the Always Chaotic Evil trope certainly has it uses, DF shouldn't squander its ability to tell good stories, and individuals rebelling against their nature nearly always makes for a good story. Sure, all goblins being thought-slaves to a demonic overlord would certainly support my argument that goblins could have an innate pressure driving them to be cruel, but I'd hate to win a good fight for a bad reason.

But we shouldn't take George_Chickens's quote as direct gospel. After all, goblins are known to overthrow and even kill their demon masters (and then immediately take his place), a mechanic Toady would be highly unlikely to have implemented if he intended them all to be unswervingly obedient to his will. But that only proves that at least some goblins can have thoughts & motivations of their own, not that they aren't fragments of elemental evil.
(Counter-argument: A goblin assassinating a demon and then assuming his role could merely be the demon's way of possessing a new body.)

. . . In a lot of Threetoe's stories the goblins are from the underworld, so I think we're going to relate that to it, to make it have more of a goblinesque feel for the current portal that the demon's controlling, so it doesn't just pour through with demons. We already have these giant spires down in the underworld that were filled with demons, but perhaps they'll be filled with goblins, they're, kind of, bastions from the demons or something like that. We're just playing around with different stuff, we'll see what happens.

Personally, I feel that the goblins fully deserve to have their own culture (or possibly lack thereof), independent of direct demonic control. I'd like to see the Dark Pits (Population ≈ 200) exhibit the goblins' natural social behavior, while the full-on Dark Fortress (Population ≈ 10,000) showcases what a demon can do with them. Perhaps only goblins from the Pits could potentially "escape" and have more benign interactions with other races. Fortress-Mode goblin sieges could also have different compositions, depending on whether the invaders are the Pit-goblins acting on their own, or if it's coming from the Dark Fortress itself.

Toady:   . . . I mean, we were thinking of running it with different groups, because the goblins don't get along, they're not supposed to get along with each other, it's supposed to be the power of the demon that keeps them under control and able to take over a bunch of civilizations instead of just descending into violence among the goblins themselves, so there are going to be different groups of goblins that don't care about the other groups of goblins and I think the only thing keeping it together is going to be the demon's secret police

This is where the argument could devolve into mere speculation on whether or not these "groups" could act as stable tribal units on their own, or whether goblin cruelty would necessarily disintegrate them until only the individual level is stable. But I for one am not going to go there, as far as I'm concerned this diversion has already been concluded.

[GoblinCookie]

Actually this a very strong argument FOR the idea that goblins "must" be cruel when you think about it.

After all, as the current game goes it is impossible for goblin civilisations to form without a literal demon raising a fortress straight from actual hell to rule them, if I'm not mistaken. So the society is not being formed by the fractious creatures that could not create a stable society, it is being created by a magical being of great power to enable it to rule over them.
And when you look at classic fantasy that's a pretty common theme. The supreme commanders of orcs/goblins are very often external beings who either created their society, brought it to prominence, or in some cases actually created the species as servants.

I still dont think goblins should have a biological imperative to be assholes, because thats un-fun, but its an interesting thought

I am not arguing that goblins are not cruel, I am arguing that they should not have a quota for being cruel, that is they should not be driven to be cruel by something akin to the dwarves need for alcohol or the present situation with focus requirements.  Goblins should be cruel as the circumstances allow, that means if I am able to discipline my goblins into behaving somewhat without this resulting in them suffering a permanent malus, suffering or dying. 

The demons are where it gets tricky.  If goblins have to torture other beings in order to function, then goblin society is effectively impossible unless there are suitable beings that are not goblins about to torture instead of each-other, but we are talking beings that are supernatural in nature.  That means they can potentially do the impossible, but can they do the socially impossible? 

You Have Selected: Starting From The Conclusion. That's a bold move, Goblin, let's see if it pays off for him.

It is indeed a fallacy, because you base everything upon the assumption that having a racial drive to be cruel must needs cause every goblin to start bloodfeuds with their fellow goblins, to the point that culture and population centers cannot exist. You offer no hint of evidence (beyond your own feelings) to support your claim of how these goblins must unavoidably be. Of course, as the saying goes, what is asserted without evidence may be dismissed without evidence, but happily I don't even have to go that route, as it's quite simple for me to show that "alternate possibilities could exist," which was all I've been arguing for.

The assumption is not an assumption Six of Spades.  It is a conclusion that follows from the premise.  The premise is that goblins with a biological requirement to inflict a given amount of cruelty to each-other cannot form a functional society *in isolation* because of the hatreds engendered in this fact drive the individual goblins apart.  The conclusion that follows is that society cannot devise a means to function *despite* it's members hatred, owing to the fact that there is no society to begin with. 

I am arguing on logic, not evidence.  Since no actual living creatures that need to be cruel in order to function exist, you won't be able to find any evidence. 

     Just as the other forum members have commented, I too agree that goblin cruelty would be better as a focus-based drive than a biological requirement.

You changed your mind then.  You started by proposing that just as dwarves have a biological need for alcohol, goblins would have a similar need to inflict cruelty on others.  I have been arguing against that position, but you have now shifted your position into one more similar to my own, which I should be happy about I guess. 

A focus based drive would be fine, since not meeting all focus drives of a creature does not result in any notable harm.  The important thing though is that it must be possible for the goblins focus drive to be thwarted by the correct environment, or else the behavioural effect is exactly the same as having a biological drive. 

Yet there are creatures that DO have an absolute imperative to hurt, maim, and kill on a very regular basis: They're called carnivores, and almost all of them must kill at least once every couple of days. Granted, basic hunting does not necessarily involve any actual cruelty . . . except that it's a very common behavior for an adult predator to catch a prey animal, and bring it back to its young still alive, so that the offspring can inexpertly rip apart a critter that has already been too badly injured to defend itself. Common house cats, meanwhile, are well known for their practice of playing with their wounded prey for long periods before finally killing it, and they very often kill purely for sport. These behaviors actually go beyond the levels of cruelty that goblins are seen, or even hinted at as, doing in DF, and therefore one could quite plausibly argue that goblins are actually LESS cruel than cats. According to YOU, then, GoblinCookie, cats cannot have any kind of social organization, because they "have to hurt each other and consequently end up killing each other."
     Except of course, that that is patently false. What do we KNOW about cats? They have an innate drive to hunt, torture, and kill, even without need. They are fiercely territorial, and will defend their home turf against rival cats with tooth and claw. The more belligerent toms will frequently sport scars, torn ears, and other marks of their various battles. When on the prowl, cats almost always prefer to do so alone, and never cooperate to bring down a target animal. BUT. Their fights are only rarely fatal. That one-eyed tomcat is proof, not that he fights all the time, but that he survives those fights. Cats frequently make friends with other cats, and sometimes congregate in large communities where their individual interactions do hint at a social structure, and even a hierarchy.
     Now, granted, cats are not sentient, but even so we can clearly see that here is a creature with a genuine, full-blown biological cruelty "quota", that still manages not to murder itself to extinction, and even has a semblance of social order. I told you earlier that I only had to show a single reasonable counterexample in order to prove you wrong. That example is now provided, your baseless assertion is now disproved.

I am well aware that goblin society could plausible function (and exist) if there were beings other than goblins around to torture, but that creates the moral dilemma I mentioned.  Goblins are basically like suffering vampires, an analogy I used earlier. 

(Some?) Cats might on occasion torture their prey or be deliberately mean to other cats.  There is however no cruelty-quota governing cat behavior, the cat does not work on the basis of "Got to be mean to X mice this month". 

My point above was only one possible refutation to this line of thinking, two others are:
     They can if the beings are hostile to each other at some times, but more placid during others. With the most obvious examples naturally being the various species who routinely fight many duels during mating season, but get along with each other quite well at all other times of the year. We can see this especially in animals that have evolved distinctly non-lethal weapons to be used against rivals, such as the giraffe's little rounded knobs that pass for "horns". Cooperative behaviors learned during peacetime would very plausibly lead to mercy during times of stress, an effect that increases proportionally with the creature's intelligence.
     Innate cruelty, and social behaviors that can mitigate / channel said cruelty, could have evolved in tandem ('evolved' in this case possibly meaning either a generational progression of learned cultural behaviors, or actual genetic evolution). Cruelty and brutality can be very effective means to reproductive success, but taken to extremes they can also quite easily backfire and make one the common enemy of a larger group, so the two qualities of "You should be the baddest dude around" and "But not TOO bad, though" could wind up in a sort of arms race, each trait effectively striving to outdo the other. Apply this pattern to your average primate, and eventually you'll get a goblin. At no point does the creature's cruelty override its self-control by too great an extent, so there is no paradox.

Giraffe horns work just as well against the many things that want to eat giraffes as they do against rival giraffes.  Giraffe horns are also pretty lethal, they are not actually horns but extensions of the skull of the giraffe, being made of bone rather than keratin they are actually more dangerous than the horns of say deer or cattle. 

Lots of things exist in nature are actually harmful to the creatures reproductive success.  They exist nevertheless because they are recessive gene mutations, innate cruelty is more likely to be that kind of a thing than something that would exist. 

Actually, I don't believe you've ever gotten me angry. Annoyed, but not angry.

You read as very, very angry indeed.  Seething I think the word is. 

And that's very interesting to me, that you would take such a fine distinction (goblins perform some given amount of cruelty just for the hell of it, vs. goblins perform the exact same acts of cruelty because they feel some innate drive to do so) and explode it into such a major difference of results (goblins that torture for fun are seen to live in population centers of around 10,000 people, but goblins that feel biological pressure to torture can never be around each other). As I recall, you were similarly fond of hyperbole back during the DuckTales episode, arguing that the majority of ducks successfully reproducing could have no other result than total ecocide within the span of a single generation. Is "Extreme Conclusion Jumping" a sport? Should you be wearing protective equipment?

What you call extreme conclusion jumping is what the rest of the human race calls logic.  If all ducks do reproduce successfully then given how many ducklings are in each clutch the maths result in an exponential population increase so great that the only probable outcome is the mass-starvation of the entire population. 

Yes there is a big difference between goblins simply being cruel and them operating under a cruelty quota.  The reason is that if goblins are just crueller dwarves, then we can prevent them from acting on their nature by disciplinary means.  A cruelty quota on the other hand means the goblins must be cruel to something, regardless of what we do. 

I have stated repeatedly that goblins are NOT forced to be cruel to each other, victims such as other races, animals, the undead, and even inanimate dummies have all been discussed in this thread. If anyone isn't paying attention, it's you. Please stop arguing against things that I clearly did NOT say . . . unless you're playing Logical Fallacy Bingo, and you need "Straw Man" to win.

We were specifically talking about the situation in which goblins have no choice but to torture actual sentient beings in order to function.  I actually liked the idea of having little dummies that the goblins have to smash and having to have an industry to make said dummies for your goblins, or else they will be forced to hurt real people instead.

Slavery obviously cannot exist without slave owners, and therefore slavers are unequivocally an essential part of the system. They are also, as it happens, the part of the system with the greatest amount of control over said system, so the lion's share of the guilt & blame for slavery's inherent evils must fall directly to them. I say this not out of desire to perpetuate a slavery derail (you'll notice I'm not bothering to respond to your Human Rights clusterfuck), but merely as an example of how you tend to say ridiculous things if you think you can get away with it. Let me simply assure that you are wrong, on the factual count as well as the ideological one.

If you own your house, does that make you part of your house?  Owning slaves does not make you part of slavery, it makes you an owner of slavery. 

I wouldn't worry about it, you hide it rather well.

That is vicious; are you practising for goblinhood? 

Yes, several cultures that practiced slavery did so in a manner that was decidedly low-key, compared to the more hardcore American version. But in those cases, an adult slave willingly signing his services over to a master for a set period of time, for a set wage, is actually far more akin to a contract employee than a "real" slave, born into bondage and with hardly any feasible way of ever escaping it, short of death. For some types of Roman slaves, it was practically being a slave in name only. But to extend that sort of leniency to all slave-keeping cultures, and imply that all slaves had the ability to buy their own freedom, is a gross overstatement on your part.

You just love to put words into other people's mouths.  I am specifically saying that individual slaves within pretty much any system of slavery are divided into various strata, some of which are relatively easy and some of which are practical hell-on earth.  I am also saying that the very functioning of slavery is best served by this situation, the plight of slaves worse than you serves to motivate the slaves in general to work hard and well in order to please their masters to avoid 'demotion'. 

To get the slaves to work hard and well is the basic problem slavery has.  Slaves will be slaves regardless of how badly and how little they work.  If I am going to be whipped and chained the same regardless of how well or hard I work, there is no reason to work hard or well.  That in itself forces all slave societies to invent different strata of slaves, if I believe that my working hard will raise me to a higher strata of slave or keep me from sinking into a lower strata of slave, that is what I will do.

Sigh. Over saying crap that makes you sound incredibly racist, such as "Slavery is not an individual cruelty to which an individual can personally be responsible," and "It is better for the slaves to think that their masters are kind people and they are only being punished because they are 'bad slaves'".

Both those statements are quite true and neither statement has anything to do with race. 

Yes, but when we modern humans think of the word "slavery", especially when it's goblins doing the enslaving, that kind of slavery is not what we're thinking of. We don't think, "Oh, I won't be allowed to vote or own property, but I'll still be treated about as well as a minimum-wage McDonalds employee", we think "Oh My God, I'm going to be flogged every night and worked to death, aren't I." That kind of slavery is clearly evil, and that's the clearly kind of slavery that goblins practice, and for you to step in and say, "ACKCHYUALLY, slavery was sometimes more moderate," does nothing but cloud the issue for no other purpose than to let you sound educated. If you want to muddy the ethical waters with low-impact slavery, have at least the good taste to specify that you're doing it with humans or dwarves, or with goblins trying to change their ways.

My point is that particularly cruel individuals do not make good slavers.  Since goblins are generally of that nature, they would make very bad slavers indeed.  The slaves of goblins would not only be prone to constantly rebel, they would be totally depressed and do next to no work.  But if they are only really there to be tortured then does that matter?

Actually, I personally think (heresy of heresies!) that ALCOHOL_DEPENDENT is also needlessly gamey and would be better off replaced by just making the average dwarf have high immoderation, rather than treating them like some kind of alcohol-powered robot or whatever, but that's just me.

You're not alone. I, too, believe it would work far better purely as a focus-based need, especially because it's never made sense to have newborns drink whiskey, and to have only invalids drink water. Dwarves can (and should) enjoy frequently drinking alcohol, but it shouldn't be an absolute biological requirement by any means. As to whether their industrial livers could survive drinking nothing but booze, I'd say that depends on the type of booze: Beer yes, wine maybe, spirits probably not. Maybe each type could reduce thirst by a different amount.
I would also suggest that dwarves have an additional need to be underground, at least periodically. Dwarves are so powerful in comparison to the other races, it's only fitting they should have an additional handicap or two.

So dwarves need to be underground periodically.
Humans need to be aboveground periodically.
Goblins need to destroy dummies or real creatures periodically.
Elves need to be aboveground periodically. 

In all cases the creatures will try to meet their needs socially in preference to individually. 

[SixOfSpades]

. . . if I am able to discipline my goblins into behaving somewhat without this resulting in them suffering a permanent malus, suffering or dying. . . .
If goblins have to torture other beings in order to function, then goblin society is effectively impossible unless there are suitable beings that are not goblins about to torture instead of each-other . . . 
I am well aware that goblin society could plausible function (and exist) if there were beings other than goblins around to torture . . .
We were specifically talking about the situation in which goblins have no choice but to torture actual sentient beings in order to function. . . .

Just as you apparently perceive no difference between "goblins are driven to be cruel" and "goblins must slaughter each other", you also seem to think that "cruelty" is equal to "torture" (especially of sentients), and that "failure to fulfill this need" can have no other outcome than "loss of function, and death". This repeated tendency toward extrapolation on your part, trying to make my position seem far more radical than it actually is, is a variation of the Straw Man fallacy, deliberately misrepresenting my argument to make me sound like the extremist. It is you who is being inflexible, not I.

You just love to put words into other people's mouths.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection

Let me be clear on all three counts: Fighting does not necessarily mean Death, Cruelty does not necessarily mean Torture, and (the most confusing one, thanks, English language) "Need" does not necessarily mean Need. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs famously includes both actual needs (food, warmth) and "needs" (love, social acclaim). In goblin terms, this means (as I stated) that goblins can regard each other as direct competitors without seeing them as actual enemies to be killed. It means that these competitors can exercise their cruelty through insults, humiliation, confiscation of goods & resources, denial of rights, assignment of menial/grueling/difficult/dangerous tasks, and physical blows, long before going to such extremes as actual torture. And it means that simply feeling a great, unfulfilled longing for an activity or emotion that has too long been denied you, does not infallibly result in your collapse and death.

Let me be clear on another matter as well: I never once described what goblins' "cruelty withdrawal" would entail. I think this idea is still too conceptual to be pinned down to specifics, and so deliberately left the matter vague and open to interpretation. You evidently have interpreted it to mean that each goblin must either torture, or die.

It is indeed a fallacy, because you base everything upon the assumption that having a racial drive to be cruel must needs cause every goblin to start bloodfeuds with their fellow goblins, to the point that culture and population centers cannot exist.

The assumption is not an assumption Six of Spades.  It is a conclusion that follows from the premise.  The premise is that goblins with a biological requirement to inflict a given amount of cruelty to each-other cannot form a functional society *in isolation* because of the hatreds engendered in this fact drive the individual goblins apart.

Thank you for so readily (albeit unintentionally) proving my point about you starting from the conclusion, it seems you literally cannot distinguish a possible effect (goblin separation) from its cause (goblin cruelty). But let me correct your use of terms: A premise is statement of fact, reduced to be as simple and nonspecific as the argument will allow. It is the combination of different premises, and how they interact with one another, that constitutes logical argument. So the actual premise, in this case, is "Goblins feel an innate drive to inflict cruelty," and nothing else. So your argument is
a) Goblins feel an innate drive to inflict cruelty,
b) Inflicting cruelty engenders fear and/or hatred,
     sub-conclusion 1) therefore goblins hate each other,
c) creatures that hate each other avoid each other,
     sub-conclusion 2) therefore goblins avoid each other,
d) societies cannot exist without sufficient interaction,
     sub-conclusion 3) therefore goblin society cannot exist,
          conclusion) therefore goblin society cannot develop means to circumvent goblin hatred.
Yet this argument is inherently flawed, as 1) assumes that the hatred must be between goblins, and c) assumes that the hatred must outweigh any reason the goblins might have to stick together (and goblins being almost universally hated is a very good reason to stick together).

There is however no cruelty-quota governing cat behavior, the cat does not work on the basis of "Got to be mean to X mice this month".

As we are unable to observe cats' "source code" and see whether they have a quota or not, neither of us is able to make any kind of statement on this matter. All we can do is judge from their behavior: Cats, largely without exception, will try to kill any prey animal that presents itself, whether they're hungry or not . . . and if possible, they will do it slowly.

. . . you won't be able to find any evidence.

I already told you that your claims may be dismissed without evidence, as you provide none of your own. I also said I didn't need to go that route, I needed only to present a single plausible alternative--which I did.

. . . if I am able to discipline my goblins into behaving somewhat . . .
. . .  if goblins are just crueller dwarves, then we can prevent them from acting on their nature by disciplinary means.

I am amazed at your choice of words. What sort of "discipline" are you proposing, whipping the goblins into not whipping people?

Just as the other forum members have commented, I too agree that goblin cruelty would be better as a focus-based drive than a biological requirement.

You changed your mind then.  You started by proposing that just as dwarves have a biological need for alcohol, goblins would have a similar need to inflict cruelty on others.  I have been arguing against that position, but you have now shifted your position into one more similar to my own . . .

As I stated earlier, I started by proposing that goblins' cruelty need should parallel dwarves' alcohol need, which is both a biological requirement ([ALCOHOL_DEPENDENT]) and a focus-based need. But I also soon clarified that with

As inflicting cruelty introduces no material element into one's system, it's clear that the cause of this need-fulfillment is purely psychological rather than physical.

So it seems that your entire cause for contention is the "cruelty quota" (as opposed to the cruelty itself), which course isn't even detectable by an in-game observer. Talk about much ado about nothing.  I'll leave you to dwell on that.

Giraffe horns work just as well against the many things that want to eat giraffes as they do against rival giraffes.  Giraffe horns are also pretty lethal . . . they are actually more dangerous than the horns of say deer or cattle.

You're correct in that they're made of bone, not horn, and therefore are technically antlers. Everything else, however, is dead wrong.

You read as very, very angry indeed.  Seething I think the word is.

Seething is indeed an applicable word, but it certainly doesn't apply to me in this case. You may be projecting again.

If you own your house, does that make you part of your house?  Owning slaves does not make you part of slavery, it makes you an owner of slavery.

Owning a house makes me part of the Homeowner's Association. It makes me part of the housing market. Just as everybody involved in the capture, transport, housing, sale, purchase, receipt, and management of slaves, were ALL part of the institution of slavery. Even those who knowingly purchased the goods produced by slaves were arguably involved, as they provided a market for the slaves' labor. I thought you were supposed to know your economics.

I am specifically saying that individual slaves within pretty much any system of slavery are divided into various strata, some of which are relatively easy and some of which are practical hell-on earth.  I am also saying that the very functioning of slavery is best served by this situation, the plight of slaves worse than you serves to motivate the slaves in general to work hard and well in order to please their masters to avoid 'demotion'.

Yes, that is technically quite correct, stick vs. carrot is a powerful motivational tool. But I was reacting to the way in which you said it, earlier: "It is better for the slaves to think that their masters are kind people and they are only being punished because they are 'bad slaves'". As a student of history, you should know that the history of slavery has been fraught with racism, and as someone fluent in the English language, you should know that 'slavery' is a word charged with incredible amounts of racial tension, whether you yourself happen to be racist or not.

That means they [goblins] can potentially do the impossible, but can they do the socially impossible?

I'm suggesting that goblins should be able to do at least one thing that you apparently find impossible: Learn from suffering multiple defeats, know when they are beaten, and accept their relatively lower rank with grace . . . ideally, without trying to murder the one(s) who shamed them.

That is vicious; are you practising for goblinhood?

As I've said earlier, one of my principal aims is to supplement your noticeable lack of humility. To encourage you to STOP thinking of yourself as the Smartest Guy in the Room, particularly when that room was created for the specific purpose of discussing an extremely wide range of possible improvements to one of the most complicated games on the planet. But in this case, my jab originated primarily from my surprise at how a self-professed scholar of history could seem to be so thoroughly, so deliberately, and so consistently on the wrong side of it.

A focus based drive would be fine, since not meeting all focus drives of a creature does not result in any notable harm.  The important thing though is that it must be possible for the goblins focus drive to be thwarted by the correct environment, or else the behavioural effect is exactly the same as having a biological drive.

Sadly, this is the ONLY part of my post specifically intended for the wider forum audience in general. Reading this made me think: Would, or should, a goblin deprived of all other possible targets for cruelty resort to self-harm? That they must inflict pain, even upon themselves? Might particularly "righteous" goblins take this route even if they didn't have to, to show their "virtue" of not hurting anyone else? It's an interesting thought.

[Ninjabread]

SixOfSpades, that self harm thing doesn't really work in any way. If the need for cruelty comes from a cruel personality, you're looking at the wrong person for selflessness, sacrifice, and caring about others. If it's a biological requirement based on brain chemicals, I highly doubt they'd get the same kick out of self harm as they do out of cruelty towards others. Remember, cruelty and harm are two different things.

[SEGUE]

What do folks think about babysitting and/or playdates that use a similar system to the group hangout/date type system I mentioned way back on page 1? So that the Uristlets actually care about something other than their mini-forges and their toy axes, and people other than parents care when I launch one of those little fellers into orbit via bridge catapult. Could even have parents get a babysitter to come over while they go out to share that plate of intestines.

[Dorsidwarf]

I like the idea of dwarves children hanging around together and seeking each other out immensely. It provides endless possibilities for mischief, emergent stories, and little Kogan being eaten by a cave spider and scaring the other kids into not trying to fight giant monsters with their grubby fists

[SixOfSpades]

SixOfSpades, that self harm thing doesn't really work in any way. If the need for cruelty comes from a cruel personality, you're looking at the wrong person for selflessness, sacrifice, and caring about others. If it's a biological requirement based on brain chemicals, I highly doubt they'd get the same kick out of self harm as they do out of cruelty towards others. Remember, cruelty and harm are two different things.

Oh yeah, that's all true, I was just thinking about what some possible effects of "cruelty withdrawal" might be, especially if the goblin is denied ALL opportunities to be cruel to others (because the simplest solution for players would likely be to put the goblin in solitary confinement). The "default" (?) effect of withdrawal would be for the goblin to lose focus and become distracted, and if it truly is denied all outlets for this need, then his anxiety might increase to the point that borders on insanity, of which self-harm is not an uncommon indicator. After all, especially despondent dwarves already commit full-on suicide, and flagellation & self-harm are not infrequently seen in real-life humans with unmet psychological needs.
I agree, I'm not saying the idea is good, just interesting. Thought I'd run it up the metaphorical flagpole.

What do folks think about babysitting and/or playdates that use a similar system to the group hangout/date type system I mentioned way back on page 1?

Definite +1, it works as a social circle for the parents as well, so they can take turns watching the group of kids, and converse with each other when there are multiple adults present. This sounds like a good side-project for / segue into nannies, day care, and schools.

I like the idea of dwarves children hanging around together and seeking each other out immensely. It provides endless possibilities for mischief, emergent stories, and little Kogan being eaten by a cave spider and scaring the other kids into not trying to fight giant monsters with their grubby fists

It should probably be a combination of age (if the kids are among the oldest in the group) and traits like Independence, Curious, and Excitement_Seeking, that determines if individual dwarf children consider themselves too cool for school.

[GoblinCookie]

Just as you apparently perceive no difference between "goblins are driven to be cruel" and "goblins must slaughter each other", you also seem to think that "cruelty" is equal to "torture" (especially of sentients), and that "failure to fulfill this need" can have no other outcome than "loss of function, and death". This repeated tendency toward extrapolation on your part, trying to make my position seem far more radical than it actually is, is a variation of the Straw Man fallacy, deliberately misrepresenting my argument to make me sound like the extremist. It is you who is being inflexible, not I.

Somewhere along the line it so happened that we both lost track of both what we were talking about and even what our own positions are even supposed to be.  I was not actually against your ideas, I was just pointing out they have ethical implications that need to be understand. 

I don't perceive a difference because in the situation *we* are actually talking about, goblins must be cruel to actual beings, not dummies and the goblins are isolated; there really isn't any difference.  Cruelty ultimately engenders hatreds from those who are the victims of it, everyone in an isolated goblin population is forced to victimise other goblins, which then consequently hate them.  The victimised goblins are themselves also forced to victimise other goblins in turn so there is nowhere for this to end up except in a loop. 

The end result is all the individuals that would form the goblin society end up hating eachother, the result being either than they kill eachother or avoid eachother; either way there is no goblin society. 

Let me be clear on all three counts: Fighting does not necessarily mean Death, Cruelty does not necessarily mean Torture, and (the most confusing one, thanks, English language) "Need" does not necessarily mean Need. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs famously includes both actual needs (food, warmth) and "needs" (love, social acclaim). In goblin terms, this means (as I stated) that goblins can regard each other as direct competitors without seeing them as actual enemies to be killed. It means that these competitors can exercise their cruelty through insults, humiliation, confiscation of goods & resources, denial of rights, assignment of menial/grueling/difficult/dangerous tasks, and physical blows, long before going to such extremes as actual torture. And it means that simply feeling a great, unfulfilled longing for an activity or emotion that has too long been denied you, does not infallibly result in your collapse and death.

Let me be clear on another matter as well: I never once described what goblins' "cruelty withdrawal" would entail. I think this idea is still too conceptual to be pinned down to specifics, and so deliberately left the matter vague and open to interpretation. You evidently have interpreted it to mean that each goblin must either torture, or die.

I did not interpret anything, that is just the scenario we are discussing, if the goblins do not need to be cruel then we are talking about a different scenario.  If goblins perceive all other goblins as competitors, then they will quickly conclude that to kill each-other is a good idea since it means their position is more secure.  Since all other goblins are going to randomly hurt you, then why go near them at all? 

It is possible to prevent fighting from meaning killing, competition from meaning killing only if there is a wider society to impose limits on those things, but since all goblins avoid or kill each-other as much as possible there is no functional wider society to regulate the conduct of goblins to keep their conflicting within certain bounds.

It largely does not matter if there goblins actually have to be cruel or else bad things will happen, or if the goblins merely *think* that it will, the effect is quite the same.  The ethical dilemma shifts from genocide to imprisonment/enslavement, but really it is still there, we can enslave/imprison goblins to force them not to act out their delusion that they have a cruelty-quota even when they don't.

Thank you for so readily (albeit unintentionally) proving my point about you starting from the conclusion, it seems you literally cannot distinguish a possible effect (goblin separation) from its cause (goblin cruelty). But let me correct your use of terms: A premise is statement of fact, reduced to be as simple and nonspecific as the argument will allow. It is the combination of different premises, and how they interact with one another, that constitutes logical argument. So the actual premise, in this case, is "Goblins feel an innate drive to inflict cruelty," and nothing else. So your argument is
a) Goblins feel an innate drive to inflict cruelty,
b) Inflicting cruelty engenders fear and/or hatred,
     sub-conclusion 1) therefore goblins hate each other,
c) creatures that hate each other avoid each other,
     sub-conclusion 2) therefore goblins avoid each other,
d) societies cannot exist without sufficient interaction,
     sub-conclusion 3) therefore goblin society cannot exist,
          conclusion) therefore goblin society cannot develop means to circumvent goblin hatred.
Yet this argument is inherently flawed, as 1) assumes that the hatred must be between goblins, and c) assumes that the hatred must outweigh any reason the goblins might have to stick together (and goblins being almost universally hated is a very good reason to stick together).

You did a pretty good job there.   

The premise of my argument was that goblins have a cruelty-quota, that is to say they have to inflict a given amount of cruelty per period of time or else something bad will happen to them (or they think it will).  That is different from a situation where goblins are simply more driven to be cruel than humans are, in that case it is possible (along the lines of your objection to point C) for them to suppress or channel their cruel drives so as to be able to cooperate. 

Since their cruelty is expressed as a quota goblins are unable to *not* be cruel to each-other, so goblin separation does necessarily happen (conclusion follows from premise) *unless* there are already non-goblins immediately at hand to torment.  I was trying to establish why an ethical dilemma exists in a world where the cruelty quota is a thing for goblins, one that does not exist in a world where goblins are simply crueller on average than you are.  You tried to respond by proposing isolation as a solution, I responding by pointing out that isolation is in effect genocidal because cruelty-quota goblins will self-destruct unless there are other beings to torment. 

The point of this discussion is that in a world where goblins operate by a cruelty-quota, those goblins will need to be initially given suitable beings to torment.  Also the inhabitants of the world will need to be aware of the ethical differences, so they don't think of dead goblins as a bad thing.

As we are unable to observe cats' "source code" and see whether they have a quota or not, neither of us is able to make any kind of statement on this matter. All we can do is judge from their behavior: Cats, largely without exception, will try to kill any prey animal that presents itself, whether they're hungry or not . . . and if possible, they will do it slowly.

The cats do very much have a quota for dead mice nutrients.  However cats do not need to torture a given number of mice every week in order to survive, that is the difference. 

I already told you that your claims may be dismissed without evidence, as you provide none of your own. I also said I didn't need to go that route, I needed only to present a single plausible alternative--which I did.

The claim you made, that "claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence" is total rubbish and you provided no evidence for it  .  As I told you, I am a historian and the majority of history is based upon extrapolating a long chain of conclusions from sources, any of which could potentially be fake/inaccurate. 

Not only is that not true, it is also the case that you can sometimes dismiss evidence without evidence.  If what follows from a long sequence of conclusions is contradicted by some new evidence that results in irrational/improbable conclusions, we can basically establish the source is fake or inaccurate. 

I am amazed at your choice of words. What sort of "discipline" are you proposing, whipping the goblins into not whipping people?

Pretty much.  If goblin cruelty comes simply from the same source that dwarf cruelty does, which is the current situation then dealing with the average goblin is no different from dealing with a particularly cruel dwarf.  Carrots+Sticks should work to make them behave nicer, even if it does nothing to actually make them nicer people. 

Seething is indeed an applicable word, but it certainly doesn't apply to me in this case. You may be projecting again.

The tone of your writing was very angry.  But your latest post seems far calmer. 

Owning a house makes me part of the Homeowner's Association. It makes me part of the housing market. Just as everybody involved in the capture, transport, housing, sale, purchase, receipt, and management of slaves, were ALL part of the institution of slavery. Even those who knowingly purchased the goods produced by slaves were arguably involved, as they provided a market for the slaves' labor. I thought you were supposed to know your economics.

I think I may have chosen the wrong words.  We were comparing slavery to oppressive governments and systems in general.  I was drawing an analogy between slavery and occupation regimes, in that they are both externally imposed.  In effect a slaver (or an occupying power) is part of slavery/occupation in the same way that if I stick my hand inside a box *I* am inside the box.  The slave or the conquered people on the other hand is someone who is stuck inside the box entirely. 

A dictatorship is maintained by those who will fight to protect the dictator against the dictatorships enemies which are only a portion of the population.  Slavery/occupation is similar in that only a portion of the slaves/conquered people are trying to overthrow slavery/occupation, even if next to none of the slaves/occupied people would be prepared to fight for slaver/occupation. 

This creates an economically crucial difference.  The dictator wants to have as many supporters as possible, the slaver on the other hand looks at every 'supporter' as an additional paycheck that comes out of his profits.  He wants to mantain slavery therefore with as few supporters as he can. 

Yes, that is technically quite correct, stick vs. carrot is a powerful motivational tool. But I was reacting to the way in which you said it, earlier: "It is better for the slaves to think that their masters are kind people and they are only being punished because they are 'bad slaves'". As a student of history, you should know that the history of slavery has been fraught with racism, and as someone fluent in the English language, you should know that 'slavery' is a word charged with incredible amounts of racial tension, whether you yourself happen to be racist or not.

You want the slaves to think that way because according to the above logic, you don't want to have to use a large number of slave-drivers to have to constantly supervise your slaves, if the slaves are themselves thinking about how to please you without you having to get someone to explicitly tell them, then your expenses are lower. 

As a student of history, I know that slavery is several thousand years older than racism.  There clearly however have some relationship, slavery (and/or militery occupation which is fundamentally similar) seems connected in that we tend to be racist against the races which we enslave/subjugate.  I think that racism is a hybrid between slavery/empire and scientific materialism, the predominance of the latter was needed for the former to produce racism. 

I'm suggesting that goblins should be able to do at least one thing that you apparently find impossible: Learn from suffering multiple defeats, know when they are beaten, and accept their relatively lower rank with grace . . . ideally, without trying to murder the one(s) who shamed them.

There is no *they* to learn anything.  As individuals they will simply be absorbed or killed off by other societies, maybe even by animal-people.  In the former case, I doubt the goblins would necessarily even care, it's more free victims to torment.  Except the civilisation to exterminate them as soon as they figure out about the cruelty-quota though.

As I've said earlier, one of my principal aims is to supplement your noticeable lack of humility. To encourage you to STOP thinking of yourself as the Smartest Guy in the Room, particularly when that room was created for the specific purpose of discussing an extremely wide range of possible improvements to one of the most complicated games on the planet. But in this case, my jab originated primarily from my surprise at how a self-professed scholar of history could seem to be so thoroughly, so deliberately, and so consistently on the wrong side of it.

You have a funny habit by which you dig up all the ways that I was right in the past, even when it is not relevant to the thread and then are surprised and get angry when it turns out I have not changed my mind.  In any case, can you be a bit less obsessed with me? 

Sadly, this is the ONLY part of my post specifically intended for the wider forum audience in general. Reading this made me think: Would, or should, a goblin deprived of all other possible targets for cruelty resort to self-harm? That they must inflict pain, even upon themselves? Might particularly "righteous" goblins take this route even if they didn't have to, to show their "virtue" of not hurting anyone else? It's an interesting thought.

I think goblins should in medium-evilness worlds be able to destroy statues or figurines, anything that has the appearance of a living beings in order to meet their cruelty-quota.  In very good worlds there are no goblins (or demons).  In good worlds the goblins are as they are now, they are crueller than you are but with no specific need to be cruel.

The thing is that being cruel to other beings meets the cruelty quota need.  It is only if the goblins are actually nice, or if they are prevented by carrot+stick from being cruel then the cruelty quota will result in them smashing images of living things.  If you don't provide such images then they will find an actual living being to savage in order to meet their quota.  If they are prevented from finding any living beings to savage, then they will self-destruct, the goblins will inflict injury on themselves in order to meet their quota at their own expense. 

In evil worlds animals (and images of animals) no longer work, the target now has to be an image of an intelligent being or an actual intelligent being.  In very evil worlds images no longer work, it has to be an actual intelligent being that is hurt, at this point all goblin civilisations have to be given a special starting population of other creatures to torment.  In very evil worlds creatures have to treat dead goblins either as a good thing or be indifferent to them. 

[SixOfSpades]

Somewhere along the line it so happened that we both lost track of both what we were talking about and even what our own positions are even supposed to be.

Your original take was that goblins having a known need to be cruel would justify other races attempting to exterminate them, and that this had dire moral implications. Meanwhile, I took the moderate take (as I still do) that there were many mitigating factors to be considered, that such a change would have little to no impact on the cruelty that goblins already practice, that the other races already have ample reasons to desire goblin genocide, and that ethical dilemmas make the game philosophically intriguing.

Cruelty ultimately engenders hatreds from those who are the victims of it, everyone in an isolated goblin population is forced to victimise other goblins, which then consequently hate them.  The victimised goblins are themselves also forced to victimise other goblins in turn so there is nowhere for this to end up except in a loop.

Even with the huge assumption that there are zero convenient animals to torment, some terribly unfortunate goblins could find themselves made into local "whipping boys", that are forced to bear the brunt of everyone else's whims. Interestingly enough, these would be the goblins most likely to want to break free from their civilizations and perhaps defect to yours; they would also be the goblins most likely to believe that torturing for fun is wrong.
You keep saying that there's no possible way that a driven-cruelty goblin society could work, yet I keep finding ways in which it could plausibly work. I expect this pattern to continue.

If goblins perceive all other goblins as competitors, then they will quickly conclude that to kill each-other is a good idea since it means their position is more secure.  Since all other goblins are going to randomly hurt you, then why go near them at all?

Because pretty much every sentient who isn't a goblin hates goblins too, and it's better to be a member of a group whose members defend each other for mutual protection than a single goblin wandering alone. Having to fistfight for a spot at the dinner table, and occasionally losing out & having to go hungry for the night, is preferable to having to solo a tigerman whose nephew got babysnatched last year.

Since their cruelty is expressed as a quota goblins are unable to *not* be cruel to each-other, so goblin separation does necessarily happen.

That is pretty much exactly what you said before. I broke down your line of reasoning for easy analysis, specifically pointed out its logical flaws, and now you respond by stating it again, practically verbatim. You have managed to learn nothing. I recently said that you represented The Great Unteachable. That may have been an understatement: perhaps you are the very concept made flesh.
While I readily agree that goblins are indeed likely to be cruel to each other, hate each other, feel urges to avoid each other, and even kill each other (at least sometimes), that "likely" does not equal "certain", no matter how much you want it to. You have a marked tendency towards stubbornness and narrowmindedness; I remember in the most recent Names thread, the OP suggested that dwarves should inherit part of their names from one or both parents, a realistic enough request. You immediately responded with (paraphrasing) "No, that could never work, surnames are completely useless." You seemed to have trouble with people having opinions that were different from yours, and running their forts unlike the way you (apparently) do. Now we're seeing that again in this thread, where you evidently believe that goblins having a cruelty urge must infallibly lead to the entire goblin population self-destructing. That's the way you imagined it, and therefore that's the only way it could be. I have indicated several alternatives, circumventions, and middle-ground variations, yet you insist on dealing in absolutes.

I was trying to establish why an ethical dilemma exists in a world where the cruelty quota is a thing for goblins, one that does not exist in a world where goblins are simply crueller on average than you are.

Speaking as someone who hasn't recently spoken out against the very existence of inalienable human rights, I think I'll operate by my standards of ethics, thanks.

What sort of "discipline" are you proposing, whipping the goblins into not whipping people?

Pretty much.

Case in point. Hypocrisy is not a virtue.

As we are unable to observe cats' "source code" and see whether they have a quota or not, neither of us is able to make any kind of statement on this matter.

The cats do very much have a quota for dead mice nutrients.  However cats do not need to torture a given number of mice every week in order to survive, that is the difference.

Technically true, but it would be more correct to say nothing more than "cats suffer no significant penalties from cruelty withdrawal", and leave it at that. Whether there's a quota or not remains unknowable.

The claim you made, that "claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence" is total rubbish and you provided no evidence for it  .

The entire history of religion is more than evidence enough--as you should well know, historian.

As I told you, I am a historian and the majority of history is based upon extrapolating a long chain of conclusions from sources, any of which could potentially be fake/inaccurate.  . . . it is also the case that you can sometimes dismiss evidence without evidence.

Okay, now if I were to take that quote's meaning, and extrapolate on it with as little regard for accuracy as it seems to give me license to do, I could say that it boils down to "Historians just make stuff up." You know--the way you just did with giraffes.

If goblin cruelty comes simply from the same source that dwarf cruelty does, which is the current situation then dealing with the average goblin is no different from dealing with a particularly cruel dwarf.  Carrots+Sticks should work to make them behave nicer, even if it does nothing to actually make them nicer people.

Actually, no, that is almost certainly not the current situation. A goblin is "driven to cruelty by its evil nature", while a dwarf is a "creature of drink and industry". Cruelty is arguably as fundamental (if not absolutely essential) to goblins as booze is to dwarves--and as Bumber said, let's not forget that goblins are ruled by actual demons from hell, and were (at least conceptually) literal fragments of evil. I think it's quite clear that they are VERY different from "a particularly cruel dwarf".
Although I do agree that goblin residents could (and should) at least try to adjust their outward manners to life in a dwarf fort--as long as there's a range of ways for them to do so, different motivations for them to do so, and varied ways to encourage them to do so.

. . . you dig up all the ways that I was right in the past

*derisive snort*

In any case, can you be a bit less obsessed with me?

I'm hardly concerned with you, but I do have a stake in what you do on this forum. If you reply to viable ideas with your own stonewalling criticism just because that's not the way YOU want to play the game-- If you answer suggestions for possibility, diversity, and roleplaying variation with artificially forced rigid uniformity-- If your response to someone pointing out your errors is to not change your position by one iota-- then you are not working in the best interests of the Suggestions forum, or even the DF community as a whole. And when you do all that while pretending to be intellectually (and now, perhaps even morally) superior, there's a risk that somebody might actually believe you. I for one would much rather that new forum members got their guidance from people who actually are trying to improve the game.

[Ninjabread]

Dorsidwarf, if we're gonna have those sorts of events affecting behaviour in that way, I think it should be subject to personality. If Kogan's buddies are fearless, like to brawl, and value justice, I reckon they should go down and seek vengeance like the little idiots they are.

SixOfSpades, surely if you're suggesting self harm be due to anxiety bordering on insanity, it would do better as a precursor symptom of the suicidal behaviour you mentioned wouldn't it? And maybe once religion gets expanded, a method of showing devotion to gods of pain and suffering, for people who don't enjoy/need cruelty.

GoblinCookie, I think expecting the violence/evilness slider to edit existing raws rather than allow/disallow things with certain tags is a little optimistic, unless conditional tokens are added in or something, like [IF:WORLD_VIOLENCE:HIGH:CRUELTY_DEPENDENT_EXTREME]. Sounds like if the appropriate tags/DFHack features are added the features you suggested could be modded in though.

[Exail]

This is half religion based:

Each Deity should require procedurally generated religious requirements (eg. no consumption of plump helmets or plump helmet derived foods in the month of Granite) and depending on how faithful the dwarf is will give them stronger thoughts about either following the law (decrease stress) or breaking it(increase stress).  The more casual of a worshipper the dwarf is the more likely they will be to break it (ie. a highly faithful dwarf would rather starve to death than break the first example given if plump helmets were the only food)

Put a minimum and maximum amount of requirements per deity in the world Gen parameter probably set the default to
Min: 0
Max: 5

[Ninjabread]

Exail, sounds reasonable as long as it's balanced well, especially if doing this sort of stuff and also the previously mentioned religious festivals can be considered praying for the purposes of needs. Temples would be much less of a time sink if there were other ways to appease deities, multiple deity worship would maybe actually be manageable.

Also an interesting possible facet that keeps this thing related to social lives: a citizen, if seen breaking religious tradition by a more devout worshipper of the same deity, could suffer a relationship hit with the individual, they may even spread the info and possibly cause them to be cast out of the collective, or seek absolution from a priest to save face/feel better. It'd be pretty important to assign priests that are friendly so they are on good terms with worshippers and actually agree to absolve them. I imagine someone who's particularly devout would be devastated if refused.

[KittyTac]

Carp, wrong thread.

[GoblinCookie]

Your original take was that goblins having a known need to be cruel would justify other races attempting to exterminate them, and that this had dire moral implications. Meanwhile, I took the moderate take (as I still do) that there were many mitigating factors to be considered, that such a change would have little to no impact on the cruelty that goblins already practice, that the other races already have ample reasons to desire goblin genocide, and that ethical dilemmas make the game philosophically intriguing.

Neither of our specific takes on this are really relevant, since my only point was that folks need to understand the ethical consequences of there being creatures that *need* to be cruel, as opposed to merely creatures that are crueler than you are. 

Even with the huge assumption that there are zero convenient animals to torment, some terribly unfortunate goblins could find themselves made into local "whipping boys", that are forced to bear the brunt of everyone else's whims. Interestingly enough, these would be the goblins most likely to want to break free from their civilizations and perhaps defect to yours; they would also be the goblins most likely to believe that torturing for fun is wrong.
You keep saying that there's no possible way that a driven-cruelty goblin society could work, yet I keep finding ways in which it could plausibly work. I expect this pattern to continue.

The whipping boys idea simply does not work for two reasons.  One is that is requires a high level of societal organization to reliably enforce such a status, meaning goblin society/states must have already reached a certain level of size and complexity, or else the whipping boys will simply keep escaping or murdering their tormentors. 

The second is the whipping boys are themselves subject to the same cruelty need as the regular goblins.  They will hence be forced to lash at the other whipping boys, resulting in conflicts that will reliably result in them all killing eachother.  Once the whipping boys have killed eachother, the other goblins will be forced to turn against eachother. 

Because pretty much every sentient who isn't a goblin hates goblins too, and it's better to be a member of a group whose members defend each other for mutual protection than a single goblin wandering alone. Having to fistfight for a spot at the dinner table, and occasionally losing out & having to go hungry for the night, is preferable to having to solo a tigerman whose nephew got babysnatched last year.

Why do all other sentient beings hate goblins?

That is pretty much exactly what you said before. I broke down your line of reasoning for easy analysis, specifically pointed out its logical flaws, and now you respond by stating it again, practically verbatim. You have managed to learn nothing. I recently said that you represented The Great Unteachable. That may have been an understatement: perhaps you are the very concept made flesh.
While I readily agree that goblins are indeed likely to be cruel to each other, hate each other, feel urges to avoid each other, and even kill each other (at least sometimes), that "likely" does not equal "certain", no matter how much you want it to. You have a marked tendency towards stubbornness and narrowmindedness; I remember in the most recent Names thread, the OP suggested that dwarves should inherit part of their names from one or both parents, a realistic enough request. You immediately responded with (paraphrasing) "No, that could never work, surnames are completely useless." You seemed to have trouble with people having opinions that were different from yours, and running their forts unlike the way you (apparently) do. Now we're seeing that again in this thread, where you evidently believe that goblins having a cruelty urge must infallibly lead to the entire goblin population self-destructing. That's the way you imagined it, and therefore that's the only way it could be. I have indicated several alternatives, circumventions, and middle-ground variations, yet you insist on dealing in absolutes.

The real-world works quite reliably and computers work even more reliably that the real-world does.  A certain state of affairs inherently brings about a certain other state of affairs or prevents states of affairs from coming into existence.  Most things are to a certain degree predictable.  The cleverer you are, the more predictable things are, conversely the stupider you are the more things seem to be an accidental. 

Speaking as someone who hasn't recently spoken out against the very existence of inalienable human rights, I think I'll operate by my standards of ethics, thanks.

I thought in your world we could dismiss things not supported by evidence.  Where is your evidence for the existence of inalienable human rights?

Case in point. Hypocrisy is not a virtue.

So punishing the bullies is now hypocrisy. 

The entire history of religion is more than evidence enough--as you should well know, historian.

Religions don't historically behave any differently to how we are behaving here in this place; they fight and argue with each-other.  I also doubt that history would have unfolded much differently if there were no religions, or everybody was of one religion.

Okay, now if I were to take that quote's meaning, and extrapolate on it with as little regard for accuracy as it seems to give me license to do, I could say that it boils down to "Historians just make stuff up." You know--the way you just did with giraffes.

No historians do not simply make things up.  You can legitimately draw conclusions from evidence and you can draw conclusions from conclusions.  Lastly you can in some cases debunk apparent evidence using conclusions. 

Otherwise you are simply a guillable idiot that can be tricked by almost any forged evidence.  Just because there is no document explicitly telling you that something is forged, does not mean that you cannot tell that you are being deceived.  A key example of this is the Donation of Constantine, in which the papacy forged a document 'proving' that they rightfully ruled over Italy. 

Now Lorenzo Valla could tell it was forged because he compared the Latin in the document to the Latin that was in use in documents around the time of Constantine and hence was able to establish it was written much later.  He drew conclusions about the way Latin was written from other documents and then using those conclusions he was able to dismiss the documents 'evidential' status. He did not find another document saying "hah hah we forged the Donation of Constantine". 

But imagine if there was a contemporary version of SixOfSpades about at the time.  He could say to Valla, you have no document saying that Donation was forged and I can "dismiss without evidence what is asserted without evidence", therefore all Italians shall belong to the Papacy forever. 

Actually, no, that is almost certainly not the current situation. A goblin is "driven to cruelty by its evil nature", while a dwarf is a "creature of drink and industry". Cruelty is arguably as fundamental (if not absolutely essential) to goblins as booze is to dwarves--and as Bumber said, let's not forget that goblins are ruled by actual demons from hell, and were (at least conceptually) literal fragments of evil. I think it's quite clear that they are VERY different from "a particularly cruel dwarf".
Although I do agree that goblin residents could (and should) at least try to adjust their outward manners to life in a dwarf fort--as long as there's a range of ways for them to do so, different motivations for them to do so, and varied ways to encourage them to do so.

The current situation is that they behave like crueler dwarves.  They have general personality facets that cause the average goblin to be crueler than the average dwarf, but there is factually no functional difference between the way a goblin behaves and the way a cruel dwarf behaves.

I'm hardly concerned with you, but I do have a stake in what you do on this forum. If you reply to viable ideas with your own stonewalling criticism just because that's not the way YOU want to play the game-- If you answer suggestions for possibility, diversity, and roleplaying variation with artificially forced rigid uniformity-- If your response to someone pointing out your errors is to not change your position by one iota-- then you are not working in the best interests of the Suggestions forum, or even the DF community as a whole. And when you do all that while pretending to be intellectually (and now, perhaps even morally) superior, there's a risk that somebody might actually believe you. I for one would much rather that new forum members got their guidance from people who actually are trying to improve the game.

It seldom happens that anyone ever successfully 'points out my errors'.  Just because somebody criticizes an idea does not mean their criticism is valid, in any case it is rarely people criticizing my ideas and more often me explaining my ideas to people who simply did not understand them and their criticisms mostly reflect their lack of understanding. The funny thing in this thread however is that I have mostly been trying to figure out how we could best implement *your* own ideas here, so where is the gratitude? 

As for the rest: Nobody has the right to demand someone change another person's opinion nor to complain when they do not do so. 

GoblinCookie, I think expecting the violence/evilness slider to edit existing raws rather than allow/disallow things with certain tags is a little optimistic, unless conditional tokens are added in or something, like [IF:WORLD_VIOLENCE:HIGH:CRUELTY_DEPENDENT_EXTREME]. Sounds like if the appropriate tags/DFHack features are added the features you suggested could be modded in though.

Well the violence slider is supposed to disallow creatures from dying, so it is supposed to change how the game works at an executive level, not simply to modify the raws of generated creatures.  My idea was to implement SixOfSpade goblin idea in the form of a [CRUELTY_QUOTA:1] token, the latter number is how much 'cruelty' they need to inflict.  Depending on the evilness of the world, how this token would work would be different and the way beings treat those with the token would be different too.

This is half religion based:

Each Deity should require procedurally generated religious requirements (eg. no consumption of plump helmets or plump helmet derived foods in the month of Granite) and depending on how faithful the dwarf is will give them stronger thoughts about either following the law (decrease stress) or breaking it(increase stress).  The more casual of a worshipper the dwarf is the more likely they will be to break it (ie. a highly faithful dwarf would rather starve to death than break the first example given if plump helmets were the only food)

Put a minimum and maximum amount of requirements per deity in the world Gen parameter probably set the default to
Min: 0
Max: 5

The problem here is what happens if a deity of a civilization prohibits the consumption of plump helmets, when that is the only food available. At the moment this is not a problem since deities do not exist independently of the civilizations that worship them, but once we have the myth generator, this will no longer be the case in some worlds.

[Ninjabread]

GoblinCookie, Disallow creatures from dying? Those worlds sound like they'll get crowded fast.

I'm not sure about your suggestion for the raw tag, it still relies on the addition of conditional tags to switch things around based on the evilness/violence slider value if you want cruelty quota implementation to vary based on slider value. Maybe if there were a variable that could be used in place of the number, and reference slider values, then you could have the tag be independent of conditional tags. So, your [CRUELTY_QUOTA:1] (and other quota intensities, each nested in a conditional statement) becomes [CRUELTY_QUOTA:WORLD_VIOLENCE]. Added bonus of that is that it makes the new additions to the raws required for the addition of the sliders more concise, and should be quicker to compile and run.

Oh, and Exail did already mention, only highly faithful (so maybe exclusively "ardent") worshippers would put their own life at risk to satisfy religious traditions. You wouldn't have people dying left and right because of that stuff, you'd have the occasional death and a load of bad thoughts because your fortress doesn't actually provide necessary facilities for people to properly practice their religion. It'd be like exclusively providing a community of jews with non-kosher foods, I doubt you'll find a great deal of people willing to die via starvation rather than eat it, but you can bet people won't be happy about it.

Also worth mentioning: not all dwarves worship the same gods. Religious dietary restrictions, especially temporary ones, will not likely be a fortress-wide issue.

The only problems I can foresee with it is if one possible tradition is that people can only eat [insert randomly selected food(s)] for a period of time, simply because of potential unavoidable bad thought flood. The Aztecs did it IRL with beans and maize, but I don't really trust my dwarves or their gods to pick a sensible food.