Note: I originally wrote this in Jan of 2007, and only recently dug it up and decided to give it an edit and post it up.

I have always taken issue with people who adhered to the tenets of Nietzsche*, or proposed a ‘might makes right’ attitude. The adopted brother (I believe) in “The Brother’s Karamazov” argued that if there was a God, then it was God who was responsible for his [the brother's] evil actions, and if there was not a God then there was thus no afterlife in which he was judged for his evil actions, and as such the evil actions were perfectly acceptable. Now, that isn’t the exact argument, no doubt, and it may even be the wrong book or character (indeed, I never read the book, I am recalling only a single scene I saw in some English class many years ago). The point is, I’ve always seen that “sort” of philosophy as inherently flawed. The “Ring of Gyges” type of philosophy.

*[I’ve never read Nietzsche, only briefly studied]

I had always internally characterized this sort of philosophy as an “asshole philosophy.” That is to say, this is the philosophy adopted by an asshole who wishes to rationalize their behavior. This fatalist (a term which I will self apply often enough) attitude that equates to: “I can, and you would, so I do.” Whenever I heard people speak like this I would judge them internally as assholes, and consider their path to philosophy not one born from questions and curiosity, but instead one born from a need to defend their actions, to defend actions which they felt guilty for.

It worked. I could think of people who took this path as assholes, but I had never put any thought into why one would have such a need to take this path in the first place. That is to say, I didn’t take this path, and as such I never thought deeply on it. And, only recently I sheepishly realized how flawed my own philosophical path was. I didn’t necessarily think at length about the questions of life and come to whatever conclusions I have come to, not by a long shot. Instead I merely looked at my own life–which of course includes the horrible things I see in the news or otherwise–and from that evidence (empiricism, yay) made my conclusions.

Is having an “asshole philosophy” a weakness? It obviously betrays a lack of trust in humanity, but is that something that can be seen as a weakness in the person who comes to such a conclusion? My life has been exceptionally good. Because of this, my general philosophy has been a positive one: don’t fuck with other people. But what of people whose lives have not been good. What reason would they have to believe that, “don’t fuck with other people,” is even remotely applicable? They know all too well that such a philosophy is obviously not going to work because invariably others will fuck with them.

How is it possible for me to judge people when it comes to something as uncertain as philosophy? Yet I cannot shake the notion that people who do feel that might makes right are somehow inferior to me. Force is a trump card. In things large and small it is inarguably a way to get what you want. Granted, it can have consequences, but what of them? If the consequence is that you are then killed or harmed, well that just proves the rule further. If the consequence is that you are suddenly unloved or distrusted, does that necessarily disprove the rule?

What if it does? What if might does not make right simply because you cannot control the thoughts of others, and thus cannot determine how others judge you. That is, perhaps, the ultimate failing point of such a philosophy: you can use it to take physical things, or to inflict pain, but you cannot use it to force someone to believe something you wish them to believe. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to write in that previous sentence, and in the end it turned out I couldn’t think of a “good” “failing point” of such a philosophy that doesn’t apply to every other philosophy out there: there is nothing you can do, physical or otherwise, that will force someone to believe what you wish them to believe. You can mislead, lie, bribe, threaten, torture, but you cannot change another person’s mind, truly.

And no philosophy is “best” at convincing others. While one man may be turned off at the demonstration of physical force, another may be impressed. While one scoffs at an attempt at reasoning, another may be intrigued.

When I read “A Song of Ice and Fire” I am often upset at how easily some characters are swayed by others, at how quickly lies can turn someone. And though I do still consider myself a pessimist, I temper that with a general attitude of ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ That is to say I will approach most new people with the assumption that they are ‘good’ until they prove otherwise. So I am curious: is my philosophy working for me? Were I to exist in the seedy world of Ice and Fire, would I be a pawn in someone else’s game because of my philosophy, or do my wits pick out the flaws in others quick enough that I could avoid such traps. And, indeed, I am rare to open up, but when I sense innocence I tend to display my feelings, and yet feigned innocence is no doubt easy to achieve.

Where do I sit? Am I but a weak minded fool put to use by others, yet driven by my belief that most people are good? Or am I the distrusting curmudgeon who lives a long and unfulfilled life?

What philosophy avoids the pit traps in a world where Nietzsche exists? Must one always be on their guard? Such a dismal place, this. And yet, that is where the excitement of life lies: the pain.

So I finished Minion. Still uncertain on the book. My current opinion is that without reading more of the series, there just isn’t enough in the first book to give it a grade. The writing is still ok, a couple of characters have broken from their casts and started to show a little bit of depth (just a little), and the plot hasn’t really advanced very far at all. In the last few chapters there was finally some broader parts of the lore “revealed” that started getting me curious (just as the lexicon had done) so that’s good. I figure I’ll order the sequel and read it, perhaps it will blossom into what I hope :)

For now, I’ve picked up He’s Scared She’s Scared. My fear, going into this book, is that it will be informative and fun but I won’t really feel like I’ve gleaned anything from it. I was also afraid I wouldn’t be able to connect with it. However, in the first bulleted list I found an example that applied to me, and then I came across this sentence:

Years of conducting interviews have convinced us that people with commitment problems gravitate toward each other.

That spoke to me, and I liked it. All right, Steven Carter and Julia Sokol, I’m in! I look forward to getting deeper into this book.

Two things about that book I’m reading.

1. I forgot to mention that this force of vampire slayers is ALSO a popular rock/rap group. It definitely adds a feel of “Saturday morning cartoon” to the mix. “By day they’re a rap group, but by night they hunt vampires!” It definitely doesn’t help me take the book more seriously.

2. I used Google to search for a particularly bad line (you know, to see if anybody else thought it was as bad as I did). Only one search result was returned and it ended up being a message board where someone was “writing” a story and fans were posting responses. This story–which I skimmed–was a horribly blatant rip off of the book :P I suppose it’s possible that the person “writing” it wasn’t actually plagiarizing (as in, was admittedly just ‘re-imagining’ the story or something), but I’d still like to believe they were :)

Yesterday I found myself wondering what I should spend my time doing. Going over my choices I told myself that right now is a good time to be interested in the things I’m interested in. I’ve a number of things with which to pass my time and thus keep those pesky non-work hours from being wasted. Let’s begin.

I am about three-quarters through Minion by L.A. Banks. I decided to read at least the first book in this series after stumbling upon a lexicon for this specific vampire universe. Why did the lexicon draw me in? Well, I’ve decided I’m going to use that as a segue into the next topic, so I’ll hit it after I talk briefly on the book itself.

In brief: elite vampire hunting squad who has a “special” member with them who is going through a really specific and special sort of puberty (she’s not a vampire, but definitely not vanilla human either).

The book is interesting. I’ve been very into deep characters as of late and as such this book put me off from the get go, as all the characters (as of right now) come across as rather cliche. This may change, but I am not holding out any specific hope. I was also taken aback by the sudden drop into the action. Without being a writer I can’t properly explain it, but I felt like the writer or publisher wanted the book to start as if it were an action movie (the book proper, that is, not the 2-3 “prologue” chapters dealing with the past). I start the book and am immediately along with the team on a hunt, hearing all the jargon and curses that go along with it. I’m not sure why this shocked me, but I was honestly expecting (and I guess hoping) for the book to build into the action. Maybe it was just the action coming right at me, or maybe it was something specific about the action I didn’t like. After the initial scene I managed to get into the flow of the book a bit better and I now find reading it more enjoyable. We’ll see how I feel after finishing it, though.

So, how did a lexicon alone pull me in? While reading that lexicon I appreciated that things were mapped out in a logical manner. Instead of “a list of vampire rules,” this was, “a list of vampire rules with explanations.” As a consumer of lore, I really like the idea that something is mapped out in a logical manner before hand. You know, to prevent inconsistencies and stuff.

SEGUE!

So, when it comes to reading rules, I’ve been playing around in Mass Effect this weekend. One feature in the game is the “codex,” which is just a collection of “lore” that you can read at any time. You know how a quest journal lets you ignore what the NPC is saying to you until you actually want to DO the quest? A codex lets you ignore lore until you are actually curious. I decided to read some of it today (I wanted to “clear out” the entries that were still marked unread). Doing that I often felt that I could’ve been reading from internal design notes directly. This is from a designer’s perspective–not a players–so in my opinion this was a good thing. I imagined this codex as existing prior to a quest writer implementing content. The quest writer would read this codex to get a feel for things and then use that as a starting point. Like that quest writer, a player can leaf over his codex and get an idea for things to come. I don’t know why that specific aspect caught my attention so much, but it felt “right” to me exposing the “rules” that designers live by to players as well. Of course, I have no idea if those notes were something scribbled down by a designer when implementing lore, or if they were painstakingly crafted after the fact. But the fact that they felt original is what pleased me.

The rest of the game happens to be amazing. Among the stuff I don’t pay much attention to: the environments are beautiful (the colors of the ship interior really feel spot on, for instance), the emotions present in the NPCs when speaking–even in non-humans–is subtle and works, the music is quite pleasing, the voice acting is great on average, and with very few exceptions the UI is something you don’t notice.

And the things I do pay attention to? The story is good so far. Yes, a little reminiscent of KOTOR, yes a little cliche at times, but strong and enjoyable nonetheless. The combat is like KOTOR with 70% less “clunkyness,” melded with a nice dose of Halo, and it definitely appeals to my play style. And the gameplay beyond the combat is wonderfully varied (and well paced to boot). Land on a planet, ride around in your “warthog” and shoot some things, get on foot to inspect a canister, play a really short puzzle game where winning feels like a prize and losing feels like no big deal, drive around some more, run into a compound with your crew and lay waste to some baddies, spend 20 minutes in your spaceship just scanning planets from afar hoping to find rare minerals… and then sit back and eat a burger while you read through the codex. And all that stuff I just mentioned? Polished to a high sheen. It works, and it works well (assuming we ignore crashes–I’ve learned to save often).

As an aside, I picked up Mass Effect from Fry’s. I paid 39 bucks for it. Fry’s is smart. They mark big games off the first week they’re out. If you’re into video games, and know releases, and pick up games when they first come out, you win by going to Fry’s and getting it cheaper than anywhere else. And Fry’s wins by knowing that you know to go there.

So how else have I been wasting my time? I just finished up season 4 of The Wire. I said above that I loved deep characters. This is one of The Wire’s strong points: an entire cast of flawed characters. Even the most heinous “bad guys” (and the most heinous “good guys,” for that matter) end up having some redeeming quality that endears them to you on some level. It feels good to pull for someone to push themselves just over a line and better themselves–even if that person isn’t real. Actually, probably especially if that person isn’t real, since they’ve been crafted specifically to make you want to pull for them.

Anyway, good times in time wasting.