Perverse Settlement Disputes

[SoulStorm]

The way disputes are settled in this game inverts the legal principle, "Innocent until proven guilty." When you release someone accused without evidence, your settlement loses happiness. If you punish them, you get rewarded. There are some very young, and/or ethically uneducated people who play this game. Repeatedly reinforcing perversions of Justice such as these is highly irresponsible. At the least, the game should use good/evil tags when presented with such choices.

Thoughts?

[Dirak2012]

You are overthinking a silly mini game...

[SumGumption]

Hang on let me unplug this computer and grab my hammer so I can fix my microwave.

Yes, you are overthinking a silly mini game. However, if you think our courts haven't been operating in the same manner.... Think again. How else are towns supposed to get rich off of the poor?

[SoulStorm]

Originally posted by sumgumption:

Hang on let me unplug this computer and grab my hammer so I can fix my microwave.

Yes, you are overthinking a silly mini game. However, if you think our courts haven't been operating in the same manner.... Think again. How else are towns supposed to get rich off of the poor?

I state a principle, and you make inferences about how I perceive the real world? If my problem is overthinking, I wish more people shared my problem. Mayhaps it's the horrendous gap between the principle and the application of the principle that led me to making my OP?

But I do appreciate the serendipity of my concern with teaching people to judge without evidence followed shortly thereafter with evidence that my concerns are justified. So thanks for helping to illustrate my point.

[Dirak2012]

The outcomes of the decisions you take are completely random and don't mean anything.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

It is basically a card game. You never know what the cpu is holding. You just make your play and hope "unknown factor" is in your favor. The thought bubbles can give you some idea of happiness, but mostly they are for laughs.

[SoulStorm]

Originally posted by Dirak2012:

The outcomes of the decisions you take are completely random and don't mean anything.

Are you sure it's random, because every time I've encountered this scenario, it's played out the same. Possible but not probable...

[umgawa]

Consider O.J. Simpson: He was found not-guilty, and yet the whole world didn't immediately go, "Oh, yes! Justice has been done!" A lot of the time, regardless of guilt or innocence, as determined by a jury, the punishment (or lack thereof) of an individual is not how society sees it. Communities often disagree with leniency and say, "No, he should be locked up forever."

So, as I see it, the game is properly modeling the uneducated mob mentality.

[SoulStorm]

Originally posted by Mr. Bufferlow:

It is basically a card game. You never know what the cpu is holding. You just make your play and hope "unknown factor" is in your favor. The thought bubbles can give you some idea of happiness, but mostly they are for laughs.

Card game built for laughs or not, it's at the very least a missed opportunity. And with the way the world is going, perhaps we should all be more thoughtful about the opportunities we're given.

[SoulStorm]

Originally posted by umgawa:

So, as I see it, the game is properly modeling the uneducated mob mentality.

I'd prefer my Avatar model the best of humanity, not its worst. At least let me choose between the two without being penalized for following the correct principle. There's more than enough of that in the real world already.

[SoulStorm]

Originally posted by umgawa:

Consider O.J. Simpson: He was found not-guilty, and yet the whole world didn't immediately go, "Oh, yes! Justice has been done!" A lot of the time, regardless of guilt or innocence, as determined by a jury, the punishment (or lack thereof) of an individual is not how society sees it. Communities often disagree with leniency and say, "No, he should be locked up forever."

I view well formulated ethical principles much like I do science. The former is constituted to resolve disputes justly, while science strives to provide a true model of the world. Even in a world where every significant actor in their respective fields were completely sincere, both justice and truth in the measures the non-psychopaths amongst us would prefer would remain beyond our grasp. Nonetheless, we are better off with these principles than without.

[Ǥɾᴧᴤʆᴧᵯᴧ]

He's already right. I also have my problems with these disputs. I was allowed to play the same MiniQuest in both of my savegames. The opponents were fighting over an item that didn't have the DNA of one of them on it. From what you knew, you had to assume that the item belonged to the person whose DNA could be found on the item.

My conclusion was wrong every time. I reloaded the savegame for both decisions and had to vote against logic. And this is not the first time that the right decision was the wrong one.

Soulstorm doesn't think too much about it.

[Xautos]

Originally posted by umgawa:

Consider O.J. Simpson: He was found not-guilty, and yet the whole world didn't immediately go, "Oh, yes! Justice has been done!" A lot of the time, regardless of guilt or innocence, as determined by a jury, the punishment (or lack thereof) of an individual is not how society sees it. Communities often disagree with leniency and say, "No, he should be locked up forever."

So, as I see it, the game is properly modeling the uneducated mob mentality.

Kangaroo courts and star chambers, huh?

Max Robespierre incited a mob on nothing but accusations and scaremongering and he was executed by the same mob he riled up. His actions incited the deaths of 10,000 innocent people in the process.

Fast forward to Nazi Germany where show trials were used to punish the innocent for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, they ended up getting worked to death or gassed in a concentration camp in Poland.

Such barbarism belongs in the past.

[Heu, Iterum Id Feci]

In pretty much all of history justice was more about revenge and locking the guilty up or worse.
Only relatively recently are we coming to a point where we start to look more into it, and are trying to also help the guilty party to give them the chance to better themselves and not fall back to their previous behavior, once they are free again, and more importantly starting to treat people who strayed from the "right" path in their path with respect.
It is not uncommon that those who had a bad spot in their past trying to hide it, because society often would outcast them again, no matter if they learned their lesson or not.
Additionally it's not that uncommon that for society the accusation of a crime is enough, especially if it is being officially investigated, to at least be sceptical or even outcast the accused. "If there wasn't something to it, they wouldn't investigate that person"
So, a happyness loss if you don't punish the party really isn't that far from what we actually see in our society, regardless if the party really is guilty or not.

[pizza7]

it is only a space game..there are much worse games young pleope mplay, with ridiculous violence, and these are hugely populair.
i dont see much probs with this game

[Cythal]

Originally posted by pizza7:

it is only a space game..there are much worse games young pleope mplay, with ridiculous violence, and these are hugely populair.
i dont see much probs with this game

I will agree to this based on what I have seen. Just a few days ago, regarding going non-lethal or lethal in combat if any has benefits, I read on cyberpunk forums that several people finds it satisfying to down NPCs in a non-lethal way and then walks up to them wriggling on the floor and shoots them in the head to finish a lethal kill.

Of course such things do happen in real life in war and within gangs and criminal minds. It is the finding it satisfying that I do not understand. If that equates to finding it satisfying to do to a real helpless human being, whether they have wronged you or not, it is not for me to say.

However, the point made by OP is valid, however minor it maybe. There is no evidence in the information given in these decisions to decide right from wrong or to make a morally and just decision. Still, we need to remain careful not to infer that the developers wishes to teach perverse ways of life.

That is, there are millions of people that play violence infused video games as well as morally wrong lifestyles. I have played Skyrim for thousands of hours and I still cannot bring myself to play as a thief or as the dark brotherhood. Is it my inability to roleplay such roles as I find them uncomfortable in real life? I do not know. Yet if a quests asks me to go kill some bandits or some sprigans or bears, I will going in with spells slinging left and right.

Does actions in video game equate to an increase in violence amongst the population? Are video game creators indirectly teaching us immoral ways of life? I think not but such an answer is not absolute since one random mind, young minds as the OP put it, can decide to enact these in real life. I will be careful with the word uneducated. Even educated people can commit acts of violence. A young and inexperienced mind is more likely to be swayed in my opinion but i have no data to support that.