. . . 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_projectionLet 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.