Sorry i forgot to thank you Starstriker for the effort of your post, i read it and enjoyed it. Don't agree with all your conclusions but i appreciate the effort.

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.

Good to see you back Starstriker! I thought you had given up.
I hope i can post argument worthy of reply - not that i argue for arguments sake, i do genuinly think i'm rite!

Consider the current society we are in now, and imagine some country using the precursor device in today's world. I think i can safely asume with absolute 100% certainty that, that nation would soon find itself at war with every other country on Earth.

Alternatively, if that country was a riteous country like America, i can predict with 100% certainty that the precursor device would not be used. Even if the president ordered it, so what? Obviously The order would not be carried out.

Now my point is this, i can predict the result of any majour non ambiguous ethical descision in today's world because i know today's world rite? So therefore obviously i cannot sit here and say i have any rite to predict a society of another time. However it is reasonable to assume that at any point in history, space age or whatever, a reasonable person like myself in that time, will understand their current society.

Now, in the game, it is assumed that you are the current leader of that society, so in order for the game to be realistic, it is reasonable to assume that you are naturally in a position of understanding of that society as if you are in your own time. Thus majour unambiguous ethical descisions should be as predictable as if you are in your own time.

If you think there is such a mechanism for predicting those secondary and tertiary effects of an action, please detail it.

Ok...
What you are doing, is trying to follow the effects of one single unpredictable event. Ok the 'ripple' effect moves out and that one single event has massive repercussions over time rite? Wrong! OOW defy perfectly reasonable facts can i?? Yes.

But my rejection of a perfecty reasonable premise is very hard to explain... i will try to use an inpresise example to aid in this endeavour. But i don't have time right now, so i will return with another post to continue later on....

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.

To continue my post...

Take Motor racing for example, there are countless numbers of factors that can determine if any particular car gains or looses a few seconds. But when that pace car comes out, all those influences no longer proceed to affect the destiny of the race. only if they contributed to the event of 'passing' do they continue to play a part. The same thing aplies to the whole universe in general, people think every little event affects the destiny of the universe forever more, but not so. There are many countless 'pace cars' in life that completely neutralise much of what happens.

Another consideration is chance. I heard a story once about a Vietnam veteran who returned to Vietnam many years later and a child approached him selling dogtags - tried to sell him his very own dogtag he lost all those years befor!

This got me to thinking about all the events that must have had to happen in order for this to have happened. One slight divergance, one person stopping to squat a mosquito at the wrong time could have prevented this from happening.

Take for example, the atoms which are currently present in your nose. Imagine the chances in all the universe of those particular atoms being the the ones to be in your nose at this point in time? Imagine all the millions of microscopic events which could have happened differently in all of time which would have resulted in different atoms being in your nose?

But in the end it is all irrelevant because there is already an infinate number of remarkable chances already making up the entire universe.

Take for example the mosquito. If you went back in time a million years and killed one mosquito, should that radically change the future? No way! Because of habitat limitations for mosquitos and all life they can affect, killing that mosquito would have no effect - habital limitations are like the 'pace car'.

Your saying one minor unpredictable event can alter the outcome of an ethical descision. I say that one minor unpredictable event will have a temporary effect at best, all the other corresponding events going on and all the future events competing for space to have an effect on the universe tend to cancel each other out - especially when you include the balancing effect of human nature over time.

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.

One minor unpredictable event? Probably, sure, though if its the wrong event at the wrong time, it could mean quite a lot. Any change gets magnified over time, and the bigger the change, the bigger the magnified effect.

But I'm not talking about one isolated event, whose ultimate magnified effect would likely be small well into the future. I'm talking about the billions of small and sometimes quite significant events that are happening at all times, at all places. Put that much uncertainty into a system and you lose all predictive capability.

You are continually making the erronous assumption that we have access to nearly enough information to model our universe. We don't, we never will... too many variables, too many small details, and it's all changing on us too fast to keep up.

Perhaps that isn't true... maybe, one day, we'll be able to see all possible futures. Once we've gotten there, though, we'll be already godlike, so such a point is entirely irrelevant.

"Of course everyone would declare war on them"...? Treating it as though it's common sense doesn't form an argument. If your point is that nations will always confront something obviously evil, then you need to take a look at all the dictators, murderers, tyrants, and madmen supposedly "good" nations have aided and abetted when it served their purposes. Or ignored when they didn't want to deal with (Rwanda, anyone? That was an evil on a far greater scale than what we're talking about here, and the world did jack all.) Unless you can logically and quantitatively rule out ALL other possibilities, you cannot say that kind of thing with any degree of certainty.

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.

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.

The grand admiral has spoken! Normally i would agree but this post is quite old and would otherwise be forgotten if not for me and Starstriker.

You are continually making the erronous assumption that we have access to nearly enough information to model our universe. We don't, we never will... too many variables, too many small details, and it's all changing on us too fast to keep up

Sorry if i gave the impression i can predict the future in general! not at all no, the whole basis for my argument lies in the connection between human nature and majour non ambiguous ethical descisions.

If your point is that nations will always confront something obviously evil, then you need to take a look at all the dictators, murderers, tyrants, and madmen supposedly "good" nations have aided and abetted when it served their purposes

No my point is that the 'shock' value of an alien device and it's alarming effects being introduced to the equation would certainly raise the entire planet up in arms. That certainly dousn't mean it would happen for any other reasons - i'm sure i can think of some though? Perhaps somone 'testing' Neutron boms everywhare might incur the wrath of the entire planet, but that depends on how widespread their attacks were.

NB: using Neutron bombs however is a military descision not an ethical one, or is it?