Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: Andir on December 24, 2011, 10:42:26 pm

Community value == Mob rule

Quote from: ECrownofFire on December 24, 2011, 10:40:49 pm

Quote from: Andir on December 24, 2011, 10:37:10 pm

So, if a community values different sex marriage, anyone attempting to violate that value is committing a hate crime?

Actually, yes (not exactly a hate crime, though, more just "wrong"). I wouldn't want to force a certain church to marry a gay couple.

That's why we have other places to go to.

Do the members of a church not have some other place to go?

No. But... this is the church that doesn't want gay people to marry, why would they leave?

I'm not saying they should.  The church that burnt down though, if nobody as hurt, should be able to find a place to worship.  I don't see why the person that burnt down the church should be judge more harshly becaue it was a church.

So, if a community values different sex marriage, anyone attempting to violate that value is committing a hate crime?

Quote from: Andir on December 24, 2011, 09:58:58 pm

In doing so, you are saying that "community values" have some value...

No, they can only have value to someone. I might care what the community thinks, or I might not.

Quote from: Andir on December 24, 2011, 09:58:58 pm

...and anyone violating those values is trying to hurt said community.

That may not be their intent, but they may cause that community some distress if those values are strong enough, yes.

So we are judging people based on community distress rather than intent?

Sure, but my point was that burning/tearing down anything shouldn't be considered "more important" because a community values it.  If the guy did it because he was trying to kill someone based on race, then it's a hate crime, but the fact that it was a church means jack squat.

The thing that keeps someone from burning down a building is fear of punishment and community disdain for the act (where the punishment comes from). Some houses are ugly. Frankly, someone'd be doing the world a favor reducing them to ashes, and I mean this. [I'm lookin' at you smurf blue house, you know who you are]. Yet the community frowns on burning down said houses whether or not doing so would help the community as a hole (O,yes that's intentional).

People in general, consider it far worse to burn down a church than most other buildings and thus that community disdain is greater against that type of action compared to other similar ones. It could be "right or reasonable," to have said disdain, or it could be "completely nuts and not make sense, because a church is a building like any other." Not the point.

The point is, "If in light of the heightened stigma of burning a church (no matter the validity of that stigma) what would keep you from burning something with a lesser stigma?"

It's the presence and intensity of the stigma, not its validity....

I'm not sure I can place any inherent value on a building based on how the community feels about it.  It's a lifeless structure built for some purpose.  Value the life inside of it, but the building should not be a symbol (even though I know people do place some arbitrary value on it.)  I cringe when I heard about people trying to "save" my old school building because they remember going to school in it.  It was probably the most inefficient building in town and it was literally falling apart.  It would have cost more to restore it than to build new.  Yet, somehow, it was a prized building and people tried holding protests in front of the building that was replacing it.  IMHO, stupid.

Quote from: Fenrir on December 22, 2011, 11:44:17 pm

In my opinion, I would say that preserving a place that one person lives is more important than one-hundred people gather — but, as I have no intention of committing any arson of any kind, it probably was not worth my furthering this particular deviation of topic.

Like I said before: Burning a house hurts 1 family. Burning a church like that hurts an entire race, community and the desire for equality and liberation from oppression. It is an important symbolic distinction. Just as important as the distinction between putting up a tent in you backyard and putting a tent up in the middle of wall street.

Burning a church does not hurt a race of people.  A community, maybe... but not a whole race.

There are a couple lines of though in development.  One of them is pushing on with features and leaving optimization for later.  It's usually sound, but I do believe there is room for some preemptive optimization.

Quote from: Andir on December 14, 2011, 07:11:01 pm

Quote from: fqllve on December 14, 2011, 05:43:23 pm

What does it matter how many letters away it was? That has absolutely zero bearing on anything. If he had said "I like to wear hats" would anyone be claiming that he's actually part of a secret cabal of cat-wearing fetishists?

The statement as he made it was highly chauvinistic and a bit xenophobic yes, but there is absolutely no reason to suspect that Romney is leaving hardly secret racist messages in his campaign ads. Frankly, I had no idea the KKK had the slogan "Keep America American" because I don't tend to pay much attention to what they say. I would imagine most people don't.

Besides, the fact that the two phrases are so similar would make his using it intentionally phenomenally stupid. This from a candidate who has no record (that I know of) of extreme positions on immigration (compared to other GOP candidates) but does have a record of playing the political game very carefully. I just don't buy it.

Thank you... My sentiments exactly.  I worked for UPS for a time and I remember people making all kinds of absurd claims that the NASCAR sponsorship of car #88 was somehow linked to the Nazi party because it could be seen as SS.

88=HH=Heil Hitler.

That's the relation there, I don't think it was SS 

Whatever, I thought it was something dumb like that.

I think people are over analyzing a rather harmless statement.  (ie: Tinfoil hat type over analyzing.)