March 23 - Coverup!

[Alaskawolf]

Okay, the rationalizations in MIB were a load of crap.

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"People are dumb panicky animals"---- my response is "Only because you TREAT them like that!" So long as people are decieved, lied to and kept ignorant, they will BEHAVE as if they were ignorant. How can you expect them to act otherwise?

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reminds me of what happened recently up here.

"An April Fools' Day prank backfired on popular local radio personality Glenner after he warned listeners that dihydrogen monoxide had been found in Fairbanks schools and homes Thursday.
Glenner, whose real name is Glen Anderson, was pulled off the air after the Fairbanks mayor's office was inundated with calls from citizens concerned that the air they breathe was laced with dihydrogen monoxide.

It is, but they didn't recognize it by that name.

Dihydrogen monoxide's chemical equation is H2O.

That's right: water.
...
People who picked up on the joke called in and Anderson included them on the show as they played along with commentary.

On the other hand, some listeners heard only portions of the broadcast, prompting phone calls to the city mayor's office.

Mayor Steve Thompson's executive secretary Jennifer Brabham said she received about 30 phone calls within two hours Thursday morning, including one from a crying woman who thought her child was dying because of toxic air in the child's school."

people do panic when they dont know all the facts. this is a small conservative town that is controlled by a small group of people

[RHJunior]

In short, the panic was not caused by too much information--- but by too little.

[RHJunior]

Rule #1: Just because it's fantasy, not EVERY bloody thing is magic.

Soothscribe--- literally translated "truth writer"--- is just a term for a NEWS REPORTER.

The reason Emmet is so fanatically devoted to fact and truth is because he is a former acolyte of the Fellowship of Truth, something of a philosophical order dedicated to the principles of objective fact and logic. (Said order has become rather politically corrupted of late..... news scrips with a seal of "FOT approved" get a reputation for objectivity and impartiality... and the FOT gets both a considerable bundle of money from annual "review fees"---- and considerable political influence with those who are eager for the FOT's implicit mark of approval....)

He, like many other young idealists, left the Fellowship of Truth out of distaste for the political games the leaders are playing and struck out on his own, working for an independent news-scrip.

And, for the last time. There is NO MIND CONTROL MAGIC. There are no "magic truth spells" in the Questorverse. No geases, no love potions, no thralls, no compulsions, none of that, period. Control spells only work on non-sapient animals, because they have no natural resistance and because such tricks directly tweak their natural instincts... and even then, the more intelligent an animal is the more difficult it is to control. A human or other sentient mind is immune to such things.

[TGIF]

Rule #1: Just because it's fantasy, not EVERY bloody thing is magic.

Thanks for the clarification.

While you have made it abundently clear that what goes on in TOTQ is not magic, I had misunderstud the implications of the title soothscribe.

TGIF

[Sharuuk]

While you have made it abundently clear that what goes on in TOTQ is not magic, I had misunderstud the implications of the title soothscribe.TGIF

Same here.

Which brings us back to my original premise that some of the mainstream F.O.T. "approved" scripts could trash Quentyn, Emmet, and the F&O with virtual impunity.


Shaaruuk

[LoneWolf23k]

And, for the last time. There is NO MIND CONTROL MAGIC. There are no "magic truth spells" in the Questorverse. No geases, no love potions, no thralls, no compulsions, none of that, period. Control spells only work on non-sapient animals, because they have no natural resistance and because such tricks directly tweak their natural instincts... and even then, the more intelligent an animal is the more difficult it is to control. A human or other sentient mind is immune to such things.

No mind control magic? ...Just doesn't seem like fantasy without the mind-altering enchanters.. Oh well, it's your world, thus it's your call.

[Squirrelly61104]

Possible 'plot hole' on magic not having a solution here.
The sooth stones.
They have only been shown in use on choosing day, but a chunk of rock that can indicate how much you actually believe what you are saying could make lying pretty difficult.

On the other paw, 'difficult' is the operative word here. One reason why 'lie detectors' aren't universally used in court cases is because it is possible to beat them. It is equally possible to innocently give a screwed up reading.
All the authorities would have to do is tell a flunky there was no secret lab and he could swear on the soothstone that there wasn't one, and it would agree with him.

[SolidusRaccoon]

In short, the panic was not caused by too much information--- but by too little.

So true, but using and manipulating the ignorant is very fun

[Frost Wraith]

Okay, the rationalizations in MIB were a load of crap.

The MIB was a perfectly concieved hollywood liberal utopia... a small, unaccountable group who decide for the rest of us dumb peons what is best. It's the way hollywood elites view themselves, after all: elites dispensing wisdom to the benighted peasants.

Now thats just generalization, and a bit of Paranoia there. Tho I can understand, (not saying its right) they do act like that sometimes.

"People are dumb panicky animals"---- my response is "Only because you TREAT them like that!" So long as people are decieved, lied to and kept ignorant, they will BEHAVE as if they were ignorant. How can you expect them to act otherwise?

Nnnooooooo nonono. I have to disagree. I have read enough and viewed enough to know there is truth to this. No, I disagree, they can act like idiots all on thier own. History and experiance show that. I dont' know why, but wheneve you add more people to an equation the probability and capacity of trouble increases. They don't need help to be ignorant. Trust me.

The founding of a free society depends--- ABSOLUTELY REQUIRES--- the presumption that all its citizens are competent to behave as adults and to administer their own affairs.... and to handle the truth as it is. A government that presumes to decieve its populace "for its own good" is, by default, going to meddle and control and coerce every other aspect of their lives "for their own good," too.

Ironically, Communisim requires that too to work. It works, people don't. It expects everyone to be nice, and share, and work for the greater good. But obviously it doesn't work, because its the perfect system for clever wicked people to make the masses more ignorant than ever. It helped only the smartest to thrive rather than helping all as it promised. Goverments involve humans, and human beings are sinful and so trust cannot be put fully in them. Politics is self serving, its almost a force of its own, like lightening or a wildfire. It only works to sustain itself. It doesn't care about you. What is wrong, and what is right is what matters in leading and governing people. And what is right and what is wrong is determiend by God. God is what you put your trust in. That is why I dont' put stock into politics or try to worry too much about goverments. In this case the counsel is wrong. Because they are lying. And God deems lying wrong, he didn't make any exceptions, and He and his Son were never afraid to tell us bad news. They didn't cover things up and if they didn't want us to know something, they told us."Not telling you right now"

I think it should have been handeled this way. I agree with the guard that this would cause a witchunt and panic. This is what they should do...just stand up and say that an ancient lab of Rosad was indeed found, and through the years of deteration an experiment escaped and caused trouble through one of the quarters of the city. But throught he valent efforts of a questor the situation was brought to an end. We have takent he lab under our control and are in the process of dismantling it. And then walk off as if there is nothing wrong. lead by example. Act calm, heck throw a small celebration or parade. Hold a festivle a little later to get the people's minds off this. Boost support for local law neforcement in such. Do not act paniced, do not talk about it. Do not deny or cover up by admit it and then go on calmly. All the while secretly and quietly keeping an eye out for more trouble. But thats just my opinion.

[Mad Mike]

I remember reading this somewhere:

If you want to find the average IQ of a group of people, add up the total IQ of all the individuals and divide by the number of people in the group.

If you want to determine the IQ of a mob, add up the total IQ of all the individuals and divide by the square of the number of the people in the mob.

Mobs do unbelievably stupid things - things that no individual in the mob would ever do on his or her own.

The trick is to never let a group become a mob. Lying to the people (or editing the truth) is not the way to do this.

[DracoDei]

Ok, here is another idea to throw out there as an alternative along with the cover-up and complete disclosure methods:
Say it was indeed a lab of Beither's. Include the Rat-King, and all the events as given, BUT say that the inner door was open, and the wights had chewed the outer door to shreds. Rat-King came out at the back of an army of wights and met Quentin as he approached it's 'lair'. Quentin was surrounded and heroically broke through to kill the rat-king. I am not sure that this is quite plausible enough to work, but whether-or-no it raises an interesting facet.
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You see, I think that the public probably CAN be trusted with the truth... but that doesn't mean a little dis-information that throws a grain of sand in the works of the public's right to know temporarily, and a medium sized pebble in the works of the bad guys isn't a good idea.
The senario proposed above doesn't let the followers know that the government knows that they had something to do with the lab.
Knowledge is power.
Give the public the full truth after the issue becomes moot when that group of followers is moved against, or any leads turn up nothing. Don't feel or show any guilt, do feel and show sorrow/annoyance over such a necessary temporary rearranging of the facts.

[RHJunior]

"People are dumb panicky animals"---- my response is "Only because you TREAT them like that!" So long as people are decieved, lied to and kept ignorant, they will BEHAVE as if they were ignorant. How can you expect them to act otherwise?

They don't need help to be ignorant. Trust me.

And the most appalling thing you can do is ADD to that ignorance.

The founding of a free society depends--- ABSOLUTELY REQUIRES--- the presumption that all its citizens are competent to behave as adults and to administer their own affairs.... and to handle the truth as it is. A government that presumes to decieve its populace "for its own good" is, by default, going to meddle and control and coerce every other aspect of their lives "for their own good," too.

Ironically, Communisim requires that too to work.

False. Communism does not require the presumption of individual competence. In fact it requires the presumption that the individual is INcompetent--- to determine how to spend the wealth he himself creates. It requires the presumption that government MUST intervene in all decisions, for the sake of those poor little benighted souls....

[Kerry Skydancer]

Technically, communism does not require the state dictating such things to you. Everyone's supposed to get the same resources, which you could presumably spend as you wanted.

Unfortunately for the idealists, the silly system ignores human nature in two very fundamental characteristics - greed and laziness. The lazy slackers don't get punished for being slackers, and the greedy, unable to gather more resources by working harder (this just benefits the slackers), take over the governmental structure instead. The actual real-world result is Stalinism, and the viciousness of the system is wholly dependent on the sanity of whichever scumbag claws his way to the top of the heap. This has historically been, at best, Tito, and ranges down from there through Castro, Mugabe, Stalin, Kim Jong Ment-Il and at rock bottom, Pol Pot.

With this track record, there are still people who, either through blind idiocy or a desire to be the scumbag on top of the heap, promote communism as a good thing, if only it's tried just once more with the right people (themselves, of course - because they're enlightened, donchaknow) in charge. Somehow, there are always idiots.

These people should not be allowed to vote, operate heavy machinery, or do anything else that requires a functioning adult brain, but ferreting them out and stopping them is a cure worse than the disease. With any luck, the last few communist regimes will collapse with the deaths of their leaders and the whole stupid idea will die with a whimper, rather than a bang. In the meantime, the rest of us just have to keep pointing out the inherent evil of the communist system and make sure they don't take power here.

[RHJunior]

It is neither "greed" (and all desire to profit, or to even retain what you make, is called "greed" by communist fools) nor "laziness" (and any resentment at being used as a piggy bank for the shiftless is called "laziness" by communist fools) that destroys communism.

*Even if men were perfect, communism would not work.*

The idea behind communism wasn't just the equal dispersion of wealth, but also equality of power--- a classless society. But in communism, power is not in the hands of the worker who produces, or in the proletariat who recieves, <I>but in the hands of those who decide how the wealth is dispersed.</i>

The institution of communism is the institution of the very thing is claims to abolish--- a class of aristocrats: those who disperse the weath... who decree not only "from each according to his ability to each according to his need," but also what each man's "abilities" and "needs" ARE.

Moreso it establishes the most awful form of aristocracy ever known to man: an aristocracy that neither produces anything, nor suffers any consequences for its mismanagement.... yet retains all true power over the system.

Even a perfect world of perfect people would shun such a system--- because perfect people would be utterly selfless and would be each concerned with the best possible welfare of each individual neighbor. And such a people would look at communism and recognize that to establish it would be to establish THEFT..... because no man's abilities are perfectly equal to another's, and no man's needs are identical to another's--- or even to his own, from one day to the next. One man who was unable to produce the same as his neighbor, yet by necessity consumed the same as his neighbor, would be stealing from his neighbor.

Communism denies people the ability to prosper. And denying someone the ability to make the most our of even the least--- as only capitalism makes possible--- would be the ultimate theft.

Even in a perfectly selfless race, capitalism would be the ideal. The only difference would be that the SELLER would be trying to push the price DOWN, and the BUYER would be trying to push the price UP.

[Kerry Skydancer]

Yeah. We're arguing semantics, I think, and perhaps Das Kapital vs. The Communist Manifesto. You're quite right, RH; that is indeed what has always happened and, given human nature, what will -always- happen. Marx was a dang fool in more ways than one, of course, but missing the problem of who arbitrated what someone's 'needs' were was probably the worst. (#2 was his complete lack of understanding that transportation wasn't free, closely followed by #3, his implication that managers, sales staff, communications people, etc. didn't 'produce' anything of value. I'm open to arguments that those two are in the wrong order, but they're both massively stupid.)

Lenin and Co. tried to implement those ideas, with the incredibly insane results of huge factories with insufficient rail lines to bring in raw material and take out finished goods, a nation spanning the largest continent on the planet with a road/rail net mileage that we would find barely sufficient for Pennsylvania, and power stations without the wires to deliver the electricity to potential users. Their chemical industry was crippled because pipe production was measured by weight, so every pipe-factory manager in the country made lead piping that no one wanted rather than desperately needed PVC piping.

This is what happens when the clueless and power-mad get to make all the decisions.

[LoneWolf23k]

I think the most important difference between Capitalism and Communism comes from their origins. Capitalism evolved naturally out of early man's first attempts at trading. Communism was a social thought experiment which had to be imposed on a large population mostly by force of arms. And when it failed, people naturally went right back to a free market structure.

Capitalism, for all it's critics, has stood the test of time.

[StrangeWulf13]

Capitalism is indeed strong. It has stood the test of time again and again, even when burdened by needless "social programs" that act like little "bubbles" of Marxism. They try to "equalize" society by redistributing wealth and goods, but often by the same means as every other Marxist society (e.g. socialism, communism, Stalinism, etc.) in history. And with the same results, unfortunately.

This ideology of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is a cancer. It feeds on ignorance and a "feel-good" mantra, both of which occur in abundance among the far-left liberals, who make up the bulk of the Democratic party today.

It hinders any society afflicted with it, no matter what form it takes. Whether a social program meant to "help the unfortunate" or full-blown communism.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I will fight this cancer at every opportunity until it is nothing more than a mention of a sad period of history in the school textbooks. You can think me extreme if you want. But when you fight an enemy like this, half-@$$ed efforts are no good. I will never give up my right to prosper for any reason, and I will fight anything that stands in my way, no matter how hard it may be.

If we find ourselves on opposite sides, so be it. I've made my choice. I'm stickin' with it.

[SolidusRaccoon]

In communism man attempts to be God, that is why it fails

[Madmoonie]

Communism, I think, is not what people believe it to be. It is, in theory, a classless society devoted to equal distribution of materials and resources, but in Communist Russia or China, this is not happening. There is obviously a government, which already sets up a class of people above others, all the while claiming that these people represent the prolitariet (sp?). Governments outlawed religion to ban religious leaders from gaining political clout, as in Medivel and Reinesannce Europe. But in turn they set themsevles up as the ultimate voice, the true will of the people. They denypower of personal choice, because apparently this clouds the judgement of a person, makes them care more about their themselves than the party. The party makes the decisions on where the material goes, what people do, (for they know what is best for the people, not the people themselves) and in the end make a bigger division between the so-called ruling class and the people, which is the exact opposite of Communism goals to begin with. The society of Rac-conan can either tell the whole truth or not at all, but they must not change what happened. (If I don't stop writing now, I'll never get work done. Tootles!)

[RHJunior]

Why is it, wherever communism is attempted (and inevitably fails) the first words out of anyone's mouths is "Oh this isn't REAL communism?"

Russia and Chine WERE/ARE communism. It is EXACTLY what happens, what has ALWAYS happened, and always WILL happen wherever it is attempted. The tyranny, oppression, death, suffering and misery are an inevitable consequence of Marx's delusional model.... as inevitable as the consequence of jumping off a cliff.

Communism requires an "equal distribution" of wealth. which first requires a howling ignorance of how wealth is created. And second, requires a governing entity to oversee the distribution..... which de facto is a consolidation of all power into the hands of a select few. And this entity <I>by the restrictions and necessities of communism</i> must punish the more productive, by removing the fruit of their productivity and distributing it to another.... and only leaving the productive individual what the governing entity determines are his barest needs. This means the productive individual is working at a loss... the loss of his time, his energy, his intellect, his effort, is a liability as surely as if he was making widgets for $10 apiece and selling them for $2. He must either reduce his expenditures--- time, energy, effort, intellect--- or be burnt out and used up. and so he begins producing less--- as does every other initially productive person in the collective-- in order to preserve what little is left of himself.
And so the governing entity must resort to more and more coercion by force to obtain the same levels of productivity....

It is an inescapable necessity--- as fire produces ash and flame, so communism creates poverty and tyranny.

Claiming that Russia and China "weren't real communism, they werent following Marxism correctly" is like saying that if they'd followed the instructions on the packet of Pumpkin seeds better, they'd have gotten watermelons like they wanted.