Theorycrafting: Steve, the black-hearted mad genius

[Blazara]

^.... perhaps that's where Flower gets his design ideas!

[natchu96]

There is not a thing like good and evil, it depends on which side you are standing or on which side are standing the people who said some is good or evil.
For example we all think assasination is evil, but if we think further we all can think of Assasins that are called heroes in some lands ;)
It depends how i said on which side you are standing.
In Star Wars perhabs the Stormtrooper think hey, we have brought peace to thee galaxy ;)

And now to steve, perhabs the so called "home" dimension is our dimension and steve wakes up from his halluzination in a asylum :D

How do you define "Evil"? What isn't good.

How do you define "Good"? What isn't evil.

They are mere invented concepts; adjectives that have no meaning other than to justify man's actions and invalidate others'.

Ah, yes, FMA. Truth would want to say a thing or two about Steve's soul harvesting routines . . .

hell, by this point, the amount of souls we've devoured, we'd actually have a pretty good chance of pulling off Father's plan
it's a good thing we're not making a huge symbol by performing certain actions at certain points resulting in a huge concentration of souls in those places, then standing at the center and opening a portal

The secret to attaining the power of God is just so easy to accomplish. It took mere decades to get the circle working the first time, and the only reason they took centuries for the final run was because they needed to establish a country first, then locate five idiots who have opened the gate (and they pulled the fifth guy at the last minute anyway). If they took over an existing country instead, it might have happened faster. And half the reason it failed was because Father gave Hohenheim half of the first batch of souls out of gratitude.

We'll outdo father. With the Device. Yes . . .

[Caboose]

My "fanon" for vanilla Minecraft is that Steve is thrust forward into the future by his government to escape the apocalyptic invasion of the Enderdragon and his minions. Eventually Steve defeats the Ender Dragon and makes peace with the fact that he can't save his people, resolving to build a brighter future with the Testificates.

In Better Than Wolves, however, Steve cannot accept that he can't save his civilization and resorts to more and more extreme measures to save his "home". Better Than Wolves is more of a tragedy to me than it is a horror story.

To extend this to SMP and Anarchy play, Steve would have travelled until only just after the apocalypse, so he has to fight/cooperate with survivors while trying to save the past.

[Horizon]

How do you define "Evil"? What isn't good.

How do you define "Good"? What isn't evil.

They are mere invented concepts; adjectives that have no meaning other than to justify man's actions and invalidate others'.

This irks me to extremes, as I have spent the better part of a year trying to nail down concrete definitions for good and evil. Granted, there are a few unaccounted factors, but it's better than nothing.
Evil: Doing something with the intent of harming another sentient being who, to your knowledge, has not committed an evil act of equal or greater value.
Good: Doing something with the intent of aiding another sentient being who, to your knowledge, has not committed an evil act.

Moral of the story: Don't say that there's no such thing as good or evil in front of me. If I have any say in the matter, you walk away from that with a broken pelvis.

[Sarudak]

This irks me to extremes, as I have spent the better part of a year trying to nail down concrete definitions for good and evil. Granted, there are a few unaccounted factors, but it's better than nothing.
Evil: Doing something with the intent of harming another sentient being who, to your knowledge, has not committed an evil act of equal or greater value.
Good: Doing something with the intent of aiding another sentient being who, to your knowledge, has not committed an evil act.

Moral of the story: Don't say that there's no such thing as good or evil in front of me. If I have any say in the matter, you walk away from that with a broken pelvis.

From this I can conclude that either
A: You consider yourself to be an evil person
B: You consider the act of breaking someone's pelvis to be less harming than holding the opinion that there's no such thing as good and evil.

I would really like to know which it is.

[BinoAl]

I've always viewed good and evil as purely human social constructs. The most accurate definition I've found of good and evil stems from where the ideas really come from: Evil is something you wouldn't want others doing, while good is something you would want others doing. There is enough variation in what is considered good and evil in different societies and time periods, but it always seems to boil down to this

[Horizon]

I'm a blackhearted bastard, of course. But, before you leave, answer me this: how many heroes don't believe in good or evil? Now, how many villains don't believe in good or evil? You'll notice it's like comparing space temperature to the inside of a star.

[BinoAl]

I'm a blackhearted bastard, of course. But, before you leave, answer me this: how many heroes don't believe in good or evil? Now, how many villains don't believe in good or evil?

Surprise surprise, the ones who don't believe in good or evil are the ones that quit limiting what they do based upon it ;)

[Horizon]

Hey, some of my best friends are evil and don't believe in good or evil...
Also, in case you're wondering why someone who thinks of themselves as evil would try to figure out what it means to be evil instead of just going out and being evil, it's because you can't practice a game if you don't know the rules. Well, maybe you can, but it's arduous and you end up learning the rules anyways...

[BinoAl]

Hey, some of my best friends are evil and don't believe in good or evil...

And some of my best friends don't believe in good or evil, and are some of the kindest, most selfless people I know. Just because good and evil are social constructs that are as flawed as the people who created the idea, doesn't mean everybody should be a dick :p

[Horizon]

I agree. I must say, I'm not actually that evil, I'm just very prone to hyperbole and hamming it up. And the occaisional burst of dickery, now that I think about it. Also, let's never speak of this again.

[Blazara]

From my point of view, the definitions of "good" and "evil (note the speech marks ;) ) come from the eye of the pansy stood there whining / crying / smiling at an action. You will agree with the actions of others, you will disagree with the actions of others. You have no place to dictate whether what they did is right or wrong. I personally view myself as a man on a similar level to a deity, I still think people can do what the f they like: If some people disagree, oh well, someone has to, if people agree, oh well, someone has to. Indifference my friends, the father of progress ;)

[TheAnarchitect]

My current active definitions.

Good: acting in a way to assist other people, or prevent harm to them, regardless of whether you benefit from doing so.
Evil: Acting in a way to harm other people, or to prevent assistance, regardless of whether you benefit from doing so.

Most human actions fall into neither category. Acting to harm someone in order to get something out of it is a dick move, really. But it's not evil until you choose that path over another path specifically because it harms others. Honestly, True evil is really really counterproductive. It tends to get weeded out of the gene pool really fast. Sadly, so does true good, but usually less so. In the long run, in a social environment, altruism pays off even if you don't care about payoffs.

I'm way more interested in order vs chaos as a philisophical/ethical divide. There's just more meat there. Almost everyone is going to construct their ethical principles so that they're the good guy. But when it comes to order and disorder, people really will commit to which one they think is better, and be honest about it.

[CycloneSP]

Okay then, I'll pose you this question. Is nothingness absolute order, or absolute chaos?

On the one had, if there is nothing, then nothing can be in order. On the other the lack of chaos could be interpreted as pure order. (these are two examples, I've heard better, I just can't remember them atm)

[TheAnarchitect]

Nothingness can't be ordered, disordered or chaotic. There's nothing to categorize there. Nothingness can't have an adjective applied to it, because it's an anti-noun. Nothingness just isn't.

What does that have to do with moral stances?

[Caboose]

Order vs Chaos always just make my Transformers references per sentence rocket into absurdity.

[natchu96]

Okay then, I'll pose you this question. Is nothingness absolute order, or absolute chaos?

On the one had, if there is nothing, then nothing can be in order. On the other the lack of chaos could be interpreted as pure order. (these are two examples, I've heard better, I just can't remember them atm)

It's kinda ironic considering the word "chaos" and what it apparently meant in greek.

[Rianaru]

Okay then, I'll pose you this question. Is nothingness absolute order, or absolute chaos?

On the one had, if there is nothing, then nothing can be in order. On the other the lack of chaos could be interpreted as pure order. (these are two examples, I've heard better, I just can't remember them atm)

It's kinda ironic considering the word "chaos" and what it apparently meant in greek.

Doesn't it mean the personification of a universe without structure, rules, or meaning?

[TheAnarchitect]

Order vs Chaos always just make my Transformers references per sentence rocket into absurdity.

That is another good reason to prefer it to tired "good vs evil" debates.

[Noshery]

Soon we will all be luring villager children into pits of water under end portals to sacrifice them and create some sort of otherworldly end-growth that kills everything that touches it. If you choose to be evil..

[Calcifire3691]

here's an interesting point about order vs chaos:

chaos is the presence of entropy
the greater the amount of entropy, the more chaotic things are
the point of greatest entropy is where anything can be present at any moment
to reach that point, everything must be totally uniform
total uniformity means that everything is perfectly ordered
order is the absence of chaos

therefore, chaos IS order

[tedium]

I just had the most awesome image in my head of what the box art for BTW would look like. Perhaps a talented artist can convey the idea as it should be. There's a poster of lego-blocks with a real life mans face bursting through it covered in placenta with teeth bared, a bone between them. At the top of the picture in large letters it reads "BTW" and under the image it simply says "for minceraft" (typo intended)

as for the above post's concept of chaos... i don't understand why chaos has to be something. to me that seems counter-intuitive... for chaos to be forced to a rule, isn't it no longer chaos? but if that's your main premise, it can see how you could come to that conclusion. i'd like a little more explanation tho :)

[simanick]

here's an interesting point about order vs chaos:

chaos is the presence of entropy
the greater the amount of entropy, the more chaotic things are
the point of greatest entropy is where anything can be present at any moment
to reach that point, everything must be totally uniform
total uniformity means that everything is perfectly ordered
order is the absence of chaos

therefore, chaos IS order

this is not exactly correct, its not total uniform(for the great heat death) but rather in absolute equilibrium. also explain entropy as chaos is really messy and kind of misinformation, it is better to say that entropy is the number of states a system can be in.

[Donzaffi]

chaos, order, good, evil, love, hate, this all are only words our actions gives them power, but we decide what this words mean but only for us not for others.

[TheAnarchitect]

Thank you high school freshman who once talked to someone who might have read Nietzsche once.

You could replace "good, evil, chaos" and the other words with anything else, like "cheese, river, antidisestablishmentarianism" and it would still be accurate. Thats not some great moral truth, it's a linguistic tautology. "Guys, words only mean what we think they mean. WOAH."