Oh, man. I'll avoid getting into a "existence of good and evil" argument and just grant you your point. Thats a whole different debate unto itself!

A civilisation is made of individuals, and throughout history, individuals never seem to average out like you are suggesting they are. Yes, a group of people can take on a herd mentality, which many people have predicted and manipulated to their advantage, but again, that doesn't account for all possibilities, is not predictive very far into the future, and only really counts for consequences that INVOLVE people. Lets take a (for the sake of argument) black and white, good and evil decision... say, the one where you can choose not to use a precursor device that requires life force to operate, or you can sacrifice hundreds of people a day to boost the planet quality. Lets ignore the neutral option.

Some consequences are fairly certain, of course. Not using it doesn't have an immediate effect on you, while taking advantage of it will cause a considerable population drop and provide a huge source of energy for terraforming and development of the world. Those are the ones that are so likely they may be simply assumed, and are the ones that the current ethical events already encode.

However, there are things that simply cannot be forseen for each decision. Choosing not to use it has effects on politics. Some people may think that you can't afford not to take advantage of it, and what they'll do about it is entirely impossible to predict. They might form political parties, they might engage in terrorist activities, coutnerbalancing political groups may form, etc. All of those, and many we can't even imagine, would be possibilities, and there is no mechanism for which we could predict what would happen, since something as simple as a slight hiccup in the power system from some tiny irregularity could influence someone's decisions enough to radically change the path of history. If you think there is such a mechanism for predicting those secondary and tertiary effects of an action, please detail it.

The evil decision has even more possibilities. While many of them might be predictable (ie, someone thought of the possibilities), like morale dropping (though, you couldn't be certain if it would actually drop, or if so, how much) or political groups, so much hinges on both tiny details (who ends up being selected? A single person can alter the course of history immensely) and unknowns (how does the device work? Are there unexpected consequences to the use of that mysterious and unfathomably advanced alien technology?

Ultimately, the only effects that can be predicted are the very short term, large scale ones. The weather channel analogy holds true, here... the further ahead you want to know the weather, the less likely the weatherman is to be right.

I'm very sorry, but you don't know the world. No one does, and anyone who thinks they can understand the world and make it dance to their tune is horrible mistaken. If you think you understand it, you don't understand it. Politics, economics, art... all of those are absurdly complicated by themselves. Intertwined as they are, they are indecipherable, ESPECIALLY to someone who doesn't have the benefit of looking at them in hindsight.

No, a country would not necessarily find itself at war, and if so, not with everyone. Countries get away with killing their own citizens all the time, and wars are very rarely fought on ethical grounds like that (though they are often justified after the fact). You can't make that assumption... there is no solid basis for it. In fact, it would more likely be quite the opposite... nations tend to avoid getting entangled with each others internal affairs unless their own interests are at stake.

Nor can you assume that, if the president of the USA ordered something along those lines, that it would not be carried out. No, he wouldn't get reelected for it, but there are plenty of ways to make people "disappear". Whether the order is carried out depends on who he asks and how. And, not to start America bashing, but America is often historically righteous in word, but not in deed. US foreign and internal agencies have done some shitty things over the years.

We can't reasonably predict anything in our own world... and if you think that you are somehow more capable than all our leaders and and academia at predicting and understanding the modern world, then you are thinking much too highly of yourself.

Also, CHAOS THEORY. In an iterative model, of which our universe is one, any small change WILL have drastic consequences.

No, a country would not necessarily find itself at war, and if so, not with everyone

You do realise i'm talking about a country openly sacrifising people to an alien device?? of course everyone would declare war on them - cm'on man, get real! same goes for the president of the usa, he would never succeed in proceeding with such an order openly as it is in the game.

I have to say this philosophical discussion is fascinating, but I would like to know: how does it apply to the game?

If you have feedback relevant to the game mechanic in question, please share it. It would be appreciated if you refrained attacking someone else's input. If you disagree with someone's premise in what they are offering, that's fine - offer your suggestion. That does not mean you should start an argument. (Please note that this is not directed at one person - the 'you' is generic)

I enjoy debates, but this is not the place for one. I would ask that further discussion on this topic be relevant to Dark Avatar, and that further debate be moved to the Off Topic forum.