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kanislatrans
I got a chance,between changing diapers and not sleeping,to sit down with a couple of players from my younger group and one of the things they had problems grasping was how a mega could be so damn powerful and as corrupt as SR corps seem to be. They are young enough(bless their innocent little hearts) and although they have a suspicion of the powers that be, were debating the idea that corporations could be powerful and also be a force for good in the world.

We talked about that for an hour or so and although I think some of my paranoia and cynicism may have sunk in, they still believe the corp line about "for the good of all"

However, I just came across this article and have emailed it to them with the question "If modern companies that are supposed to be helping people are capable of this type behavior, How do you expect a company hundreds of time large to behave any better"
marketing the disease and selling the cure


And so, fellow DS'ers, I will put the same question to you...
KarmaInferno
Evil?

Not at all.

Amoral, profit-driven, and power hungry?

Absolutely.




-k
Doc Chase
QUOTE (KarmaInferno @ Oct 11 2010, 11:27 PM) *
Evil?

Not at all.

Amoral, profit-driven, and power hungry?

Absolutely.

-k


AZT and Mitsuhama's recent actions make me wonder about the first. Blood sacrifice for personal power is enough for the Dunkie Society to throw out a 1mil bounty on the heads of any confirmed blood magi.

Mitsuhama's 'research' into Technomancers, the near-war declared on them in Emergence, and the Rose Garden project are enough to make me think there's just a bit more than amorality there.
KarmaInferno
Well, I was speaking of the general nature of Megacorps.

It is true there is individual variation.

Note that I tend to place "does not value human life" more in the "amoral" category.

The Azzies are probably the closest to having actual "evil" agendas that aren't 100% profit-driven. But even they do it for power, mostly.

To paraphrase on the nature of Evil:
"Existence offers us nothing if not the opportunity for an endless series of betrayals. There's a world behind the world. Lie once, cheat twice and everything becomes clear. Do not mistake my deception for a character flaw. It is a philosophical choice, a profound understanding of the universe. It is a way of life. I am a monster, yes."

biggrin.gif



-k
Sixgun_Sage
My megas fall along the spectrum of enlightened self interest, it's more a matter of how nice they are about it and how long the view they take. Ares, Evo, Horizon? cyber.gif . Mitsuhama and Aztechnology? devil.gif . Fuchi? dead.gif
Critias
I'm with Karma on this one. They're not actively evil just for evil's sake -- they're out for "what's best for our shareholders." wink.gif
Neurosis
QUOTE (KarmaInferno @ Oct 11 2010, 05:27 PM) *
Evil?

Not at all.

Amoral, profit-driven, and power hungry?

Absolutely.




-k


An important distinction, and one I mostly agree with. Although I'd change "not at all" to "not exactly" and make sure to exempt Aztechnology.
Nifft
In my 6th World, the Corps aren't evil. They aren't good. They aren't even internally coherent -- especially not the secret departmental projects which tend to hire 'runners.

For example, it's entirely plausible that an Aztech executive might hire a band of do-gooder 'runners to spoil an Aztech blood magic ritual -- PURELY to screw over his departmental rival.

So, basically what Karma said, plus heaps of internal confusion and some very deadly office politics.
Glyph
Corporations are amoral - they don't have a single guiding intelligence behind them. Individuals with power within the company can range from frustrated idealists, to those making decisions out of enlightened self-interest, to those making decisions out of greed or lust for power. Tending mostly towards the latter - the megas are the bad guys, after all.

And the latter (driven by greed or power lust), I would define as evil. That's what evil is - some people seem to think that if someone isn't a cartoon villain doing bad things purely to be bad, they aren't evil. The truth is, evil people will nearly always have what they have convinced themselves are valid reasons for their actions - or even if they aren't capable of deceiving themselves completely, they will at least have some high-sounding rhetoric to cover it up.

In addition to the powerful people, there are all of the minions, who might have some occasional qualms about what they are doing, but will hide behind "just following orders". Although there will also be some of them who like abusing their power to do bad things. Some corporate guards might feel a bit bad about driving the squatters off the site of their new factory construction, but others might relish the thought of busting some heads.
jaellot
This notion comes up with my players from time to time, too. Actually, the whole notion of "Good vs. Evil" comes up a good bit. For me, it comes down to this- Yes, they are Evil. But it's not personal, it's just business. It's that indifference that makes the difference, heh.

Take Werewolf: The Apocalypse. You have to big, nasty corporation Pentex, which is where our bit of debating inevitably boils down to in regards to comparisons. They are out to destroy the world, just for the sake of doing. Honestly, that's rather dumb. Actually it's extremely dumb.

But if you take the Big Ten from SR, and have them simply doing the same shit, only this time it's because it's worth billions of nuyen, and it suddenly takes on a different flavor. Yes, those chemicals we dumped will kill the very land, and eventually everybody around them. But the cost to dump them properly would eat into the profit margin. Besides, they aren't real people, otherwise they would have a SIN number and job. Also, it's not going to be my problem, I'll be retired by then, living the good live, away from here. Let some other schmuck clean it up. Indifference.
Kruger
I dunno how "evil" we've ever presented the corps as. They just... are. When you have a monstrosity with that much money and power, and decentralized control, you're going have abuses, sure. But the corps, with maybe the exception of Aztechnology, have never really felt evil. The Japanacorps got a bit of the negative light in the older editions since they were written when the Japanese still were an economic powerhouse, but that was probably subjective bias of the time.

I think if you make the corps inherently, or actively evil, it works for a "Fight the man!' style game. However, I don't think it's a very realistic way to portray them. The corps have it good in the world of Shadowrun. They have no interest in upsetting the balance. Their profits lie in maintaining the status quo, but they didn't entirely create that status.

And really, in the end, if the corps are evil, and the players are working for the corps furthering their interests, then the runners are evil too. I think everyone involved is just human. Looking out for their own best interests most of the time. And with a corporation, you amplify that into a sense of collective interest.
capt.pantsless
QUOTE (Kruger @ Oct 11 2010, 10:44 PM) *
And really, in the end, if the corps are evil, and the players are working for the corps furthering their interests, then the runners are evil too.


This is what really interests me about the Shadowrun setting - the choices that players make for their characters. Do they go for short-term gain or help-out the little guy and potentially make a powerful enemy? I always find myself adding those kind of elements to campaigns just to see what the folks sitting at the table will do.

To the OP - I'd agree with many others in this thread - the Corp is generally neutral, if selfish and short-sighted, but individuals can be terribly, terribly evil.
Nath
QUOTE (Doc Chase @ Oct 12 2010, 12:29 AM) *
AZT and Mitsuhama's recent actions make me wonder about the first. Blood sacrifice for personal power is enough for the Dunkie Society to throw out a 1mil bounty on the heads of any confirmed blood magi.

Aztechnology sure has no monopoly on killing people to get more personal power, or money. The only differences is that the blood mages must do it themselves, and that it taints the Astral Background faster than other kind of misdemeanors.

What makes Aztechnology an evildoer ? Laundering Mexican cartel money ? So did MCT with the Yakuza. Supporting cartel operations ? Wuxing does help Chinese Triads. Ares Macrotechnology sure do not support gunrunner operations, they sell the stuff themselves. Controlling the Aztlan government ? I'm pretty sure all the other megacorporation would do just the same had they the opportunity. Lofwyr is just more subtle, when it comes to Europe.

So, what makes Aztechnology more of an evildoer ?
- The Oscuro/Darke agenda to help the Horrors. Internal purge put this to an end circa 2060.
- Resurrecting the bloody Aztec rituals. It may have been part of the previous one, but it is still going on. Pay respect to native culture !
- Bio-warfare in Yucatan. On that one, the ACS probably went further than what MCT and joint corporate forces did in Tsimshian, Philippines and Kenya.
- The nationalization by the Aztlan government of foreign corporate assets in 2044. This is more than evil. This is communism.
Mäx
QUOTE (Doc Chase @ Oct 12 2010, 12:29 AM) *
AZT and Mitsuhama's recent actions make me wonder about the first. Blood sacrifice for personal power is enough for the Dunkie Society to throw out a 1mil bounty on the heads of any confirmed blood magi.

That bounty is for alive blood mages, kinda like most corps pay runners to extract people from other corps.
I never understand where you people get this idea that the bounty is because blood mages are evil, if that was the case wouldn't they be paying the bounty for all blood mages, not just the ones from the list they provide and also why would they want them alive if that was the case. cool.gif
Doc Chase
QUOTE (Mäx @ Oct 12 2010, 09:26 AM) *
That bounty is for alive blood mages, kinda like most corps pay runners to extract people from other corps.
I never understand where you people get this idea that the bounty is because blood mages are evil, if that was the case wouldn't they be paying the bounty for all blood mages, not just the ones from the list they provide and also why would they want them alive if that was the case. cool.gif


If you pay attention to the fluff, they put out a list specifically so Joe Runner doesn't bring in every mage off the street claiming he's doing blood sacrifice.
sabs
My Dad worked for a big Chemical Company that bought a plant in Delaware from Dupont.
Dupont had built a baseball diamond for the little league kids to use, on top of where they used to dump chemical waste right into the ground. My dad's company had to pay for the clean up (it was discovered about 3-4 years after they had bought the plant).

They built a baseball diamond for kids, on top of chemical waste.

My dad always said that the only thing that kept the chemical companies from just dumping waste was regulations, because the cost-benefit analysis shows that it's cheaper to dump the waste and pay the occasional fines and lawsuits, than to properly dispose of it.

That's a regular modern day corp. I figure in the SR future they do that kind of shit all the time with no qualms. So they're evil, in the amoral we only care about profit kind of way.
IKerensky
I am sorry but Corps ARE Evil.

"They dont do Evil because of Evil", "They are just Amoral and profit driven", "They just want power"...

Heck, lets just call a cat by his name.

What define Evil ? Did a really Evil person defines herself as Evil ? Even so did she ardently pursue Evilness or is it just her pursuit of Greed and Powerlust over any Moral Code that define her actions as Evil ?

So, yes, the Corps are Evil because their Goals, Methods and Motivation define what Evil is.
Ascalaphus
I do think it's good to amp up the evil just a bit. RPGs should be larger than life, not slaves to realism. Make the corporations just a bit nastier, or more blatant about it. Government is more helpless to stop them, and it shows.

There's also more to corporations than just profit; anyone who's been in office politics knows that. People making careers, carrying out vendettas, pushing pet projects.. and some of those people are just nasty. In fact, the nasty people fight dirtier, and therefore often win.

In any corporation there'll be a struggle betwen the "defenders of sanity" (the bottom line, protected by the shareholders and their minions) against the idiosyncrasies, pet projects and fraud of everyone else.

And to make a good game, the nasty stuff will spill out into the runners' world...
Critias
QUOTE (IKerensky @ Oct 12 2010, 09:05 AM) *
I am sorry but Corps ARE Evil.

"They dont do Evil because of Evil", "They are just Amoral and profit driven", "They just want power"...

Heck, lets just call a cat by his name.

What define Evil ? Did a really Evil person defines herself as Evil ? Even so did she ardently pursue Evilness or is it just her pursuit of Greed and Powerlust over any Moral Code that define her actions as Evil ?

So, yes, the Corps are Evil because their Goals, Methods and Motivation define what Evil is.

In game terms -- because, let's face it, D&D was the gateway drug for lots of people, sets the standard for many games, etc, etc -- yes, sometimes evil people do define themselves as evil. It's an important distinction to make, then, between "evil for evil's sake" (generally on a supernatural scale, like demons and devils, Horrors, Cthulu stuff) and "just generally pretty fucking greedy."

The orphanage test:

Your standard 14 year old playing his first Chaotic Evil Wizard in a D&D game will cast Fireball repeatedly to burn down an orphanage because he thinks it's funny, because it's the "eeeeevil" thing to do, to offer them up as a sacrifice to get into some Prestige Class, because he doesn't want this daily spells to go to waste, because the average orphan might be Neutral or Neutral Good so it's his job to murder them, or because he gets his jollies off on riling up the town guard so then he can Fireball them repeatedly. He'll do all this while getting to roll a whole lot of d6's, drink a bunch of Mountain Dew, and to watch the frustrated look on the face of the party Paladin who's across town and doesn't know what's going on, in-game.

A ruthless megacorp will build, fund, and staff an orphanage in order to take in the SINless (or orphans left behind by employees) in order to get them used to the conformist corporate lifestyle, get them comfortable and accustomed to wearing the clothes the corp gives you, eating the food the corp serves you, and attending educational and vocational classes to help you be a better corporate drone. The children will be given a virtual credit of corporate vouchers every week (with small deductions made for clothing, rent, and food) in order to get them into the consumer lifestyle and to numb them to the "company store" in their future. The megacorp will do all this while conducting marketing research on the children to test out new flavors of food, while giving them food past the expiration date ("it's only illegal to sell it to consumers, not feed it to company wards!") to cut down on corporate waste, while meticulously testing them all for magical potential, and while appearing to be a benevolent entity that's giving back to the community by taking care of needy kids. Then, somewhere down the line, when a hungry up-and-comer is trying to make a name for himself by discrediting the wasteful spending and bloated budgets of his predecessor, someone just might decide that the whole thing is a waste of company funds, and there'll be "a horrible accident" and a small news clip showcasing the efficient, heroic, but ultimately futile, response of the company trained fire department as the building goes up in smoke.

That's the difference between evil for evil's sake, or "evil for the lulz," and corporate greed. It's all about the bottom line, and different manager's interpretations of it.
Glyph
I think IKerensky's point, and mine, a bit earlier, is that a lot of people are too gun-shy about the word "evil", maybe because it sounds judgemental, or simplistic, or they simply don't like the implied value judgement. But for whatever reason, a lot of folks seem to have the notion that if it isn't some cartoonish, unrealistic, evil for evil's sake that you would rarely if ever encounter in real life, then some other word is better to describe it.

But evil is just fine as a word to describe greedy, amoral, petty, vindictive, short-sighted, or selfish behavior. Especially for a dystopian game where these traits, more than evident in a lot of real-life companies, are exaggerated even further to make the megacorporations into obvious bad guys.
Brainpiercing7.62mm
QUOTE (Glyph @ Oct 12 2010, 11:38 PM) *
But evil is just fine as a word to describe greedy, amoral, petty, vindictive, short-sighted, or selfish behavior.

I thought you were descibing politics... twirl.gif
Critias
QUOTE (Glyph @ Oct 12 2010, 04:38 PM) *
I think IKerensky's point, and mine, a bit earlier, is that a lot of people are too gun-shy about the word "evil", maybe because it sounds judgemental, or simplistic, or they simply don't like the implied value judgement. But for whatever reason, a lot of folks seem to have the notion that if it isn't some cartoonish, unrealistic, evil for evil's sake that you would rarely if ever encounter in real life, then some other word is better to describe it.

But evil is just fine as a word to describe greedy, amoral, petty, vindictive, short-sighted, or selfish behavior. Especially for a dystopian game where these traits, more than evident in a lot of real-life companies, are exaggerated even further to make the megacorporations into obvious bad guys.

For me it's mostly because the word "evil," in a role playing game, sci-fi, or fantasy setting, tends to have implications to it that are a little too heavy-handed and simplistic for your average Shadowrun game. Ares isn't Sauron. Shiawase isn't Emperor Palpatine. Your average corp arcology isn't the fleshy, pulsing, belly of a Cthuloid beast, and corporate-run New York city isn't Zhentil Keep.

There are connotations to capital-E Evil, in an RPG, that I just don't see existing within most levels of most corporations, in Shadowrun. Corporations might do evil things, but to me the reason they're doing those things matters, in large part because player characters in Shadowrun are often doing evil things, too, but are willing to fight tooth and nail in order to justify their murder of security guards, kidnapping of researchers, and theft of private property.

Corporations should be monolithic entities that are, taken as a whole, probably the "bad guys" of the setting, sure. But I think there's the temptation there for folks to reduce them to mustachio-twirling villains who are tying damsels to railroad tracks just because, and that does the setting, the people that make up the corporation, and the game a disservice. There's more complexity to it than "Because Elminster says they're bad," to me.

I save capital-E Evil for the blood magicians, Twisted Path Adepts who are serial killers, Insect Shamen that want to see the race wiped out, and Horror-lovers like Darke. I do my best to walk a tightrope in my own games, and keep just about everyone else, "human, but still capable of doing evil things when it benefits them."
jakephillips
Just people who make their own rules and arn't held accountable to anyone other than themselves and do whatever they can to make a profit.
Kruger
QUOTE (Critias @ Oct 12 2010, 02:35 PM) *
Corporations might do evil things, but to me the reason they're doing those things matters, in large part because player characters in Shadowrun are often doing evil things, too, but are willing to fight tooth and nail in order to justify their murder of security guards, kidnapping of researchers, and theft of private property.

Exactly. It still comes down to the fact that if we make the judgment call that the Corps are "evil" then the shadowrunners who work for them are evil too. Which is fine, because most shadowrunners are indeed murderers, thugs, and thieves who are far less repentant and subtle about their misdeeds.
IKerensky
QUOTE (Critias @ Oct 12 2010, 08:31 PM) *
It's an important distinction to make, then, between "evil for evil's sake" (generally on a supernatural scale, like demons and devils, Horrors, Cthulu stuff) and "just generally pretty fucking greedy."


Sorry but I dont really agree with your examples of Evil for Evil Sakes. Cthulu or other Great Ancient by example are definitely not doing anything evil for evilness... they just dont care at all about humanity and pursue their own war of power against the other Elders that chase them to our galaxy. ey are defined several time in Lovecraft as pure evilness but not with sheer willingness just because that is the essence of what they are and what they do.

Even Horrors dont act evily just for evil sake, they do it as a way of substentation, they NEED to do so or they die. In that way Horrors can be seen as substantially less evil than corporation.

But the truth is that evil is evil, no need to use convulated justification or synonyms.
Kyrel
You know, in order to answer a question about "how evil a corporation is", you/we really need to define what it means to be evil. Otherwise debating it becomes somewhat difficult IMO.

Me personally, I've always had a problem with the concept of objective definitions of "evil" and "good", because IMO it's really all down to intentions combined with the point of view. Some would say that murder is evil. Fair enough, but what if the person you kill is a psychotic mass murderer? Are you committing an evil act then, or are you protecting the future victims? Or what if you kill someone in self-defense? It's still murder, even if the victim was trying to harm or kill you. And then you have the truely grey areas where things get really fun. Am I committing an evil act, if I donate money to humanitarian causes, is seen publicly kissing little children, and championing their causes, if I in reality don't give a damned about neither the humanitarian causes nor the children, and my sole interest is making myself look good in the public eye, because I want people to support my candidacy to a given public position that I want, because I really crave the power that comes with that position? My actions will in this situation be helping a lot of people, which normally would fall under the category of "good" acts, but my reasons for doing them are based on selfish and powerhungry motives, which would normally be classed as "evil" or "bad" acts.

If I were to define Evil, it would have to be something along the following lines: "Causing harm for no other purpose than personal entertainment or callus whim being acted upon, simply because one could."

With regards to corporations I'd have to say that in general, corporations are not evil. They are "merely" driven by the desire and need to maximise the result on the bottomline at (almost) all costs. "It's just business", sometimes taken to the extreme because the corp has the power to do it and get away with it, "for the good of the shareholder".
Ascalaphus
I put it in reverse. First I assume that all the big corporations ARE evil. They simply are. The question is how does that affect their actions?

* Ethical concerns will not be allowed to hurt the bottom line.
* Contempt for any lesser beings, like customers, wageslaves, regulators, competitors and supplies, bordering on constant hostility towards the entire outside world
* Constant urge to lie to the public.

Individual corporations may have additional "flavors" of evil to add;
* Collaboration with Horrors
* Unusually much experimentation on unwilling human test subjects
* Blood magic
* Dangerous experiments with Insect spirits
* Selling products that do the public no good whatsoever
* Exceptional cruelty when dealing with enemies (such as activists or complaining consumers)
* Careless, causing lots of accidents that hurt outsiders (toxic spills)
* Actively trying to destroy humanity
* Can't resist the urge to try to commercialize forces too powerful and dangerous to control
* Supporting racism and bigotry
* More active in undermining democratic government than other corporations
* Cybermancy
* Vehicle for a Toxic agenda
* Reckless; will bring civilization down in the long run simply by strip-mining everything and other unsustainable practices

and so on
Neraph
QUOTE (Kyrel @ Oct 13 2010, 07:36 AM) *
You know, in order to answer a question about "how evil a corporation is", you/we really need to define what it means to be evil. Otherwise debating it becomes somewhat difficult IMO.

I was going to bring this up but I decided not to because it will inevitably lead to a philisophical debate. In order to define evil you need to define a set of moral guidlines, and that starts smacking of religion - a hotly debated topic online.

Proceed with caution.
Kyrel
QUOTE (Neraph @ Oct 13 2010, 06:14 PM) *
I was going to bring this up but I decided not to because it will inevitably lead to a philisophical debate. In order to define evil you need to define a set of moral guidlines, and that starts smacking of religion - a hotly debated topic online.

Proceed with caution.


Trust me Neraph. I have no desire to get into a religious debate here. The only point I was trying to make, is that I believe that the concept of "Evil" is subjective, rather than objective. And that makes it somewhat moot to try and debate "how evil" something is, because the answer will depend on how you perceive the situation.

In RPG terms, having objective evil makes a lot of things much easier, as "objective evil" allows you to have things like "detect evil" function, and it also allows for a more clearcut definition of "the heroes" and "the villains".
sabs
You do not need religion to have a set of moral guidelines.

Somethings should be self evident, even if you don't believe in the Great Spaghetti Monster.
Doc Chase
QUOTE (sabs @ Oct 13 2010, 06:02 PM) *
You do not need religion to have a set of moral guidelines.

Somethings should be self evident, even if you don't believe in the Great Spaghetti Monster.


Some would disagree, and that would start the fight we're all hoping to avoid. biggrin.gif
sabs
QUOTE (Doc Chase @ Oct 13 2010, 07:04 PM) *
Some would disagree, and that would start the fight we're all hoping to avoid. biggrin.gif


smile.gif
It's a free internet they're entitled to be wrong wink.gif
Mäx
QUOTE (sabs @ Oct 13 2010, 08:09 PM) *
smile.gif
It's a free internet they're entitled to be wrong wink.gif

Not in this forum, they aren't.
As that whole set of conversations is pretty much against the tos(number 4 to be presice)
sabs
QUOTE (Mäx @ Oct 13 2010, 08:21 PM) *
Not in this forum, they aren't.
As that whole set of conversations is pretty much against the tos(number 4 to be presice)


Dude
buy a sense of humor smile.gif
really
Doc Chase
QUOTE (sabs @ Oct 13 2010, 06:09 PM) *
smile.gif
It's a free internet they're entitled to be wrong wink.gif


I don't know about you, but my internets run me about $50 a month. nyahnyah.gif
Mäx
QUOTE (sabs @ Oct 13 2010, 09:32 PM) *
Dude
buy a sense of humor smile.gif
really

I new i should have added the wink smiley at the end of that first line.
Once again i forgot the rule number 754 of the internet "Unless you make it totally obvious, someone will assume your being serious" wink.gif
And no i'm not going to tell you what the 753 rules before that one are cool.gif
Myrgan
QUOTE (Kyrel @ Oct 13 2010, 02:36 PM) *
If I were to define Evil, it would have to be something along the following lines: "Causing harm for no other purpose than personal entertainment or callus whim being acted upon, simply because one could."

If we were to accept that definition, there would be very little "evil" in the world.

Giving an action or person the label "evil" is the act of condemning that action or person without attempting to further understand the motives for the action or of the person. The reason why we don't always attempt to understand motives if we did understand them, condemning the action or person wouldn't be so easy. But condemning is necessary, it is an important tool of social order.

An Example: A kid walks into his school, pulls out daddy's sporting gun and pistol and starts shooting his fellow students and teachers before putting a bullet through his own head. People will be quick to smell evil in the air. The kid is too young and too much of a victim himself for many people to suspect him as the sole source of evil, so the evil must have gotten into him somehow, probably via brutal computer games and Marilyn Manson. Rail against brutal computer games and Marilyn Manson, call for stricter censorship, close case until next time.

But if people could look inside the kids head before and during the amok, they would see his motives. The kid probably felt rejected, despised, disesteemed, whatever. All he ever wanted was to be part of"them", but they just wouldn't take him in. So he'll stay on his own, fuck them! With no one to let it out with, the grunge, the isolation grows bigger and bigger over months, years, until, no longer able to cope, it bursts. "Fuck this life, I'll put an end to it! But before I go, I'll make them feel the same misery they made me feel! They don't give a shit about me? They will tomorrow!" Something like that.

The point is, if you can fully comprehend a person's motives, it's hard to condemn that person. But we have to condemn things we can't afford to tolerate. That's when "evil" comes in handy. That what "evil" was invented for. Call it "evil" and you no longer have to comprehend the motives.

For me the concepts of good and evil are too irrational, I try to do without them. There is benevolence and selfishness. Both are understandable, from a social perspective the former should be encouraged, the latter must be condemned.
Saint Sithney
QUOTE (Nath @ Oct 12 2010, 01:06 AM) *
- The nationalization by the Aztlan government of foreign corporate assets in 2044. This is more than evil. This is communism.


Actually, it's totalitarian national socialism. Communism means that all people are equal within the system and ownership is given to every member on an equal basis.

All corporations are self-governed states. Each of them owns the entirety of their domain and rules it with a strong sense of ownership, not just of their property, but of the workers, their ideas and their labor.

Every single Megacorp is a Nazi state.


But that's just an ideology. How is that ideology applied?
Well some corporations are like giants who with one step everything beneath their foot dies and with their next step, life blossoms from under their foot. And at best they are psychopathic.
QUOTE
glibness and superficial charm; grandiose sense of self-worth;
pathological lying; conning and manipulativeness; lack of remorse or
guilt; shallow affect (i.e., a coldness covered up by dramatic
emotional displays that are actually playacting); callousness and lack
of empathy; and the failure to accept responsibility for one's own
actions.


But, lets look at something which hasn't been broached yet from the techno-future perspective.

In the future, people are the problem. Not the people who want power or who run things, but people who want food and jobs. The surplus population. All those people in the barrens who have no place in the society of the corporate state, and all those people within the corporate state which are becoming redundant. With robotics, AIs and near-AIs, people aren't really needed on any level of labor. What jobs they have are superficial. A single programming team made up of geniuses can create an algorithm to take in information and recombine it evolutionarily into new ideas.

Take for example this article from 1999 about a program designed to create ad copy, which consistently outperformed a selected test group of people.

When you think about this problem, you see that a corporation as a profit-driven entity is continuously concerned with streamlining itself, and as such would be focused constantly on how to get rid of more and more people. The corporate organism is the enemy of humanity and is constantly concerned with how to dispose of people.

At the risk of running too long to keep anyone's attention, I'll bring up another historical example of "dealing with the surplus population" in Asia this time. So, for numerous centuries there were two main cereal crops in china, rice and millet. Millet, if you're unfamiliar with it, is very close to wheat in terms of how it grows, the protein content and so forth. They were both fairly popular as far as cultivation went, but China's rulers noticed that rice was far more labor-intensive to produce (and tastier!) and therefore required all the farmers to remain on the land and work continuously. Rice tied people to the land in a way that millet did not, so the leaders decided that rice would be the primary crop and millet would be relegated to only a small percentage of the total production. They used rice cultivation to better subjugate their people. This is a precedent repeated by government entities throughout time. The problem of people is not new.
Ascalaphus
QUOTE (Myrgan @ Oct 13 2010, 11:48 PM) *
If we were to accept that definition, there would be very little "evil" in the world.

Giving an action or person the label "evil" is the act of condemning that action or person without attempting to further understand the motives for the action or of the person. The reason why we don't always attempt to understand motives if we did understand them, condemning the action or person wouldn't be so easy. But condemning is necessary, it is an important tool of social order.

An Example: A kid walks into his school, pulls out daddy's sporting gun and pistol and starts shooting his fellow students and teachers before putting a bullet through his own head. People will be quick to smell evil in the air. The kid is too young and too much of a victim himself for many people to suspect him as the sole source of evil, so the evil must have gotten into him somehow, probably via brutal computer games and Marilyn Manson. Rail against brutal computer games and Marilyn Manson, call for stricter censorship, close case until next time.

But if people could look inside the kids head before and during the amok, they would see his motives. The kid probably felt rejected, despised, disesteemed, whatever. All he ever wanted was to be part of"them", but they just wouldn't take him in. So he'll stay on his own, fuck them! With no one to let it out with, the grunge, the isolation grows bigger and bigger over months, years, until, no longer able to cope, it bursts. "Fuck this life, I'll put an end to it! But before I go, I'll make them feel the same misery they made me feel! They don't give a shit about me? They will tomorrow!" Something like that.

The point is, if you can fully comprehend a person's motives, it's hard to condemn that person. But we have to condemn things we can't afford to tolerate. That's when "evil" comes in handy. That what "evil" was invented for. Call it "evil" and you no longer have to comprehend the motives.

For me the concepts of good and evil are too irrational, I try to do without them. There is benevolence and selfishness. Both are understandable, from a social perspective the former should be encouraged, the latter must be condemned.


There is a difference between real-world evil and story evil.

Real-world evil is problematic, because it's so subjective.

Story evil on the other hand, isn't so problematic. It has a place in setting up the drama of the story. It might be larger-than-life, because this isn't life. It can be a bit far-fetched, but it's the effect on the story it has that counts.

Fictional corporations can be evil, just because it serves the purpose in the story. You can concoct a reason after the fact about why they're so evil, but the real reason is that the story could use an evil corporation, and there it was.
Mercer
It reminds me of the old addage about evil triumphing when good people do nothing. Or as it was phrased in the book The Immaculate Invasion, "it was not the evil of the few [that allowed the holocaust to happen], but the obedience and cynicism of the many." Truly heinous acts require only a few people actively working towards them, but many who stand by in silence.

Corporations in my world are not good or evil. They are amoral, utterly without judgment except as it pertains to the bottom line. They are profit driven, and to take that to it's extreme that means that money has value where human life does not. (It's not wholy unrelated, because human life is where you get your consumer base. But the corporation is not concerned with human life separate from it's consumer base.)

Corporations are made up of people. (And dragons and blood spirits and vampires and cyberzombies, but mainly people.) However, the corporation has a collective viewpoint different from the individuals that comprise it. 100 people can get together and make a decision that almost all of them would disagree with. The board may all be decent people who on their own wouldn't hurt a fly, and yet together they are capable of steering the corporation onto courses of action that are incredibly harmful.

I think in that way, corporations are a little like insect spirits-- their outlook is fundamentally alien. Despite being comprised predominantly (even overwhelmingly) of people, they are in a literal sense inhuman. "Evil" is not a bad word for it, but they're evil in the way HAL was evil, or the way the Terminator was evil.

So that's my take on it. Are corporations in my world evil? No. If anything, they're worse.
Neraph
QUOTE (sabs @ Oct 13 2010, 12:02 PM) *
Great Spaghetti Monster.

I actually find that extremely offensive. Please refrain from using such a slanderous term, if you would.

QUOTE (Doc Chase Posted Today, 12:04 PM )
Some would disagree, and that would start the fight we're all hoping to avoid.

/agree. I only mentioned it as a word of caution - one that apparently wasn't heeded too closely.

Back to the original discussion - it really, really does matter what definition of evil you are using. If it's subjective, what are the subjects; and if it's objective, what object are you measuring it by?

It's interesting that even under objective morality morality is subjective, based on which set of "objects" you're judging by. For example: the laws in the United States versus the laws in Germany as pertaining to alcohol and minors. You can say that a 20 year old buying alcohol is legal, but that statement is not true in the United States (by and large - there are a couple loopholes, I know).

EDIT: In the same way evil is defined differently, even objectively, if you're using the Judeo-Christian law, the Hindu law, the Bhuddist law, or the Athiest law.
Nifft
QUOTE (Neraph @ Oct 14 2010, 12:32 AM) *
I actually find that extremely offensive. Please refrain from using such a slanderous term, if you would.
Indeed. The noodly appendage of the great and holy Flying Spaghetti Monster can be of any size He should choose it to be.


QUOTE (Neraph @ Oct 14 2010, 12:32 AM) *
Back to the original discussion - it really, really does matter what definition of evil you are using. If it's subjective, what are the subjects; and if it's objective, what object are you measuring it by?
In my case, I'd like to be able to distinguish between the immoral and the amoral.

Amoral behavior may or may not be bad. Skimping on some stupid safety procedures, not bothering to check if there are batteries in the failsafe detonation device, and not bothering to double-check the measurements on your drilling platform? That's amoral negligence. You are taking a risk with other people's well-being, but you're not doing anything to actively hurt them, you just don't care about them enough to do your job right.

Immoral behavior -- which I'm going to call evil -- is stuff like blood magic. You know you will need to kill someone every time you use your special power. You're okay with this. You will be actively harming someone, for a boost in your personal power, and you will be doing it repeatedly.

If there were a railgun powered by babies, that would be evil too.

However, a railgun fired at a criminal that misses, and instead vaporizes an orphanage, that's merely amoral.
Mercer
I think that in this instance "amoral" is the more damaging of the two, because there are way, way more people who don't care about the consequences than there are people who want to build baby-powered railguns (or an Imagination Chamber powered by the heart of an orphan, to use a Venture Industries example).

It's kind of like Little Bill complaining about "men of low character." Bad character is at least some kind of character. The blood shaman using orphans to power his mojo is bad, and yeah he has to be stopped, but at least he's thinking it through. He's honest about it. As opposed to a group of people in a boardroom, bloodlessly deciding upon a course of action based solely on it's profitability.

It's a question of scope. Serial killers are horrible monsters, but the bodycount tends to be small. A corporation that pollutes an area, lowering the birthrate and raising the rates of cancer and other directly attributable diseases is going negatively affect far more people than one loony with a knife.
Brainpiercing7.62mm
Oh, but it's so simple:

Whenever you consciously harm another sentient individual (and I use individual rather than human being) in any way, who has not previously harmed you in any way, for the furthering of your own personal goals, ideas or whims, then that is an evil act. There are certainly ways to justify that, but they don't matter, for the definition. Also, when you harm a human being in punishment out of proportion to a previously committed evil act by that person, then that is also evil.

When you unknowingly harm another sentient individual and then don't take responsibility, in effect do nothing to undo the harm done, then that is also evil.

When you risk harming another sentient individual for above reasons, especially in cases where you absolutely cannot take the responsibility for your actions, then that is also evil. So face it, people, speeding is evil! So is the stock-exchange. Whenever you weigh other people's risk against YOUR gain, then that is evil.

Quantification is entirely another matter. There may also be perfectly valid cases, where you might have to do any of the three cases. But that is then a matter of societal standards and laws. This is still the most objective definition I can come up with.
Wordman
The only force acting 100% of the time on a megacorporation is the profit motive. Individuals within the corporation may act counter to that, but they can never do so for long (and never when business turns bad). Take a look at Google as a model of this, and, in spite of their "don't do evil" guideline, they have been encroaching on the dark side lately.

The important thing about megacorps is that they are "evil". It is that the profit motives drives them to be inevitably dehumanizing. That is, when your concern is profit, it is not necessarily for people. I always remembered this cartoon when playing megacorps:

Dilbert
AppliedCheese
I am generally of the opinion that the Megas, as a whole are simply brutally callous and calculating organizations, because that's what it takes for them to stay Megas. They care about money, power, and influence. They will set the conditions necessary for them to acquire these things. You can trace most of their organizational actions to intelligent self interest, although it may be a twisty path when staring up from the runners point of view. As a whole, with the possible exception of AZT, they are not fundamentally interested in watching the world burn for the sake of cackling while standing in the blood fueled fire.

Can this be evil? Absolutely. But its self limiting evil. Because while burning down one orphanage may help the bottom line for some inexplicable reason, making a policy of burning down orphanages will not. Assassination and burglary may be the necessary tool of the corp's best interests, and Mega's won't think twice about using them, but you would be hard pressed to find any Mega that thought genocide was a swell solution to a market problem. In short, the Mega's are willing to do bad things if it can reasonably be ascertained to help them with minimal risk of negative consequences. Hell, that's why we have shadowrunners to begin with. Evil, unethical, right bastardly, yes, but rationally motivated self-policing evil towards an easily identifiable end that is rather likely to benefit humanity in the process through the magic of the same market forces that make the corps evil to begin with.

The true EVIL in this setting comes from the few true sociopathic individuals who work in these organizations. The people who want to set the world on fire and douse it in a river of blood just to get their jollies. Because the serial killer with a knife is scary, but the serial killer who is the head of R&D or marketing is down right devastating. The guy who authorizes massive blood magic use, not because it might make a useful snack-food for stuffer shack to sell, but because its a thrill to him to slaughter thousands and get away with it, nay, are complimented for it. Because those are the ones who are going to find any excuse to cause the misery, regardless of whether it even makes any sort of sense.

Come to think of it, shadowrunners work on the same principle. Most will put a bullet in bob from acocunting if the price is right. They've got the skills, they've got the talent, and hell, they probably even enjoy the challenge of a run and figuring out just how to put a bullet in bob from accounting when presented with the job. Even when they kill him, there's probably the same rush as scoring a goal in hockey-but not a cackling hah"hah! I just ended a life! freakin awesome, killing is erotically sweet!" thing. Thats analogous to your typical mega.

The shaodwrunner who goes specifically looking for jobs that involve killing bob, just so they have a flimsy (yet corporately protected) pretext for kidnapping him, torturing him, and taking glee in his rattling death...that's analogous to the few really bad apples who might permeate the ranks of any organization, but who's influence in a mega can make for some truly evil policies.


AppliedCheese
The designers of non-double post stopping BBs are also, possibly, mildly evil.
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