[CitizenJoe]

Very often, evil is determined by which end of the sword you're looking at. 

Anyway, I vote we stop discussing 'Evil' because alignment debates will rage on for countless pages with absolutely no payoff.

[jonathanc]

Very often, evil is determined by which end of the sword you're looking at. 

Anyway, I vote we stop discussing 'Evil' because alignment debates will rage on for countless pages with absolutely no payoff.

I've always disliked extreme moral relativism. If we can't agree on some kind of definition of evil, then the word has no meaning. This is ridiculous enough when applied to reality, but in the context of a fictional gaming world, it is completely unnecessary.

[CanRay]

OK, how about this?

Cutting people's chests open to feed bloodthirsty "gods" in order to increase share value is evil, m'kay? 

[Angelone]

I will also add that they are the ones who unleashed Skip on the world.

[Nath]

Cutting people's chests open to feed bloodthirsty "gods" in order to increase share value is evil, m'kay? 

I must disagree with this extremely relativist point of view.

Aztechnology being a private corporation, its share are not publicly traded and thus have zero Market Value. Even if you were to account for an increase of share Fair Value, it would include subjective factors.

[CanRay]

Cutting people's chests open to feed bloodthirsty "gods" in order to increase share value is evil, m'kay? 

I must disagree with this extremely relativist point of view.

Aztechnology being a private corporation, its share are not publicly traded and thus have zero Market Value. Even if you were to account for an increase of share Fair Value, it would include subjective factors.

Then they're cutting people open for dreks and giggles?

[CitizenJoe]

Surgeons cut people open all the time.

Street Samurai cut people open all the time.

Soldiers cut people open (with bullets) all the time.

All of that is ok, but magicians aren't allowed to do that.  Now the thing is, all those other things are called evil depending on the society in question.  So if you consider the Aztlan blood magic evil, it is because your society says so, not because it is inherently evil.

[Angelone]

The people you mentioned, don't cut people open for power or to enslave their spirits. There's a huge difference. I'm not going to touch how you think surgeons are evil.

[shrike]

Surgeons cut people open all the time.

Cutting to heal is one thing, killing them on purpose is quite another.

Street Samurai cut people open all the time. Soldiers cut people open (with bullets) all the time.

So ... frequency makes killing ok?

All of that is ok, but magicians aren't allowed to do that.  Now the thing is, all those other things are called evil depending on the society in question.  So if you consider the Aztlan blood magic evil, it is because your society says so, not because it is inherently evil.

So no member of any society can consider any other alternative than what their society says is acceptable? I have to disagree here. History shows us whether that statement was true or not.

[CitizenJoe]

There are extreme orthodox religions that do not allow surgery.  It lets your soul out or something.  My point is that there is a culture that considers that evil.  There is a culture that considers soldiers evil.  There is a culture that thinks cutting people down on the streets evil.  So when you put your threshold of evil at blood magic, I'm just saying that it is your personal belief and not something absolute.  Just keep in mind that the historical society that Aztechnology is based off did do sacrifices and it was expected and desired.  People fought for the honor of being sacrificed.

Just because your society deems something evil, that doesn't mean it actually is.  However, you are a part of that society and you should feel perfectly justified operating off of those beliefs.  What I do not agree with is flatly stating that they are evil as if that was a concrete fact.  And then applying that blanketly across the entire population.  And then blaming them for any of your problems.

[shrike]

Epistemology really isn't my thing. I get what you're saying though.

Edit: apparently I can't spell.

[Angelone]

The big thing is they are not just sacrificing willing people. PoWs, slaves,  and random people that have been kidnapped are the majority of the sacrifices.

Also you aren't answering the whole "enslavment of another persons spirit" thing.

[CitizenJoe]

Also you aren't answering the whole "enslavment of another persons spirit" thing.

Never heard of wage slavery?

Let me make this easy for you.  I will refute any magic basis for applying evil to Aztechnology.  Magicians account for less than 1 person in 100,000 people.  I can easily write off any magic as experimental or rogue events.  If you're going to get any traction, you need an argument based off of the mundane aspects of the corporation.

[Angelone]

Sacrifice and magic are big aspects of the corporation. If that doesn't do anything for you how about planting man eating trees in a major civilian population center, committing large scale genocide, and hindering humanitarian aid to a country so they can get leverage to rape said countries natural resources? Oh and slavery, slavery.

Evil is based on perception, I think we all agree on that. However, there are actions that are pretty universally considered evil.

[shrike]

History is replete with situations where that one person out of 100,000 is the catalyst if not the root cause of some of humanities darkest moments. Why not in this instance also? Aztechnology in the business arena is no different in most regards than any other major corporation.

Edit : Apologies to the OP for continuing the derailment. I'll stop now.