Simply what do you think is more important for an alliance or nation to have on Planet Bob.

By this I mean would you allow morality to get in the way of your ambitions or would you just ignore it and go ahead with doing whatever you need to do to progress.

One and the same. Null vote.

Brit what are you doing? :|

Annoying you of course.

I concur, they are inexorably linked.

First post explains it all.

As I recall, Order and Freedom are on opposite ends of the scale, not Morality and Freedom.

How can you be moral under modern definitions and not be free? You can't. Null vote.

Sorry I could of worded this a bit better it would seem.

Null boated. Meh.

It's not such a bad topic idea but it'd be more interesting if you gave definitions of what morality and freedom are, even if those definitions are idiosyncratic.

Morality imposes restrictions on the way people act, which is the antithesis of freedom.

No, because its morally wrong to restrict anything, thus Morality = Freedom.

"Freedom" places restrictions on the liberties of others, Morality (with a capital M) requires the protection of those freedoms.

Correction: you believe it is ethically wrong to restrict anything. I fail to see how this negates my point in any event.

Actually Freedom and Liberty are linked at one of the highest points possible, general meaning.


Morality = Ethics, there is nothing in their definitions that disagrees with the others. It negates your point because you are saying Morality poses restrictions on peoples actions, making it not freedom, when if you have one, you have the other 50 words meaning the same thing.

Then the only ethical rule is to protect and uphold freedom? Isn't that contradictory, because in order to uphold freedom you must impose your will on others?

The concept of morality only exists within the weak and delusional. There's other places where it's perfectly applicable, here it's just inane.

It would seem that the morality the OP is suggesting here (the morality of Planet Bob) has to do with exercising one's own freedom up to a point, while not encroaching on the freedoms of another. "Just ignore [morality] and go ahead with doing whatever you need to do to progress."

For instance, tech raiding obviously infringes on the freedom of the raided nation. But, on another note, to say that no one can tech raid is technically an infringement of the freedoms of the raider. Even though said freedoms contradict other freedoms.

Similarly, to note a more universal virtue here on Bob, we can look at treaties. It is generally considered the moral thing to do to defend a treaty partner against unjust aggression. However, it may be beneficial to the party not yet engaged to stay out of the war in spite of that morality - what Bob knows as "honor". Hence, exercising freedom by remaining neutral in the conflict (though no one would agree that this is moral).


Are you in fact asking whether or not the nations of Bob take others into consideration when acting, britwarlord? As opposed to doing whatever is in one's own interests without regard to the interests of another?

I'll make a quick note before we start this debate: Please read my posts and respond to them instead of something you wish you heard.

It's pretty basic. It's immoral to impose restrictions on the liberties of others by subjecting them to attack, threats, whatever. Thus, a proper understanding of morality would allow all parties to continue enjoying their own freedoms without imposing on others.

(And, seeing as we're about the engage in a hearty "freedom to" vs. "freedom from" debate, I'll get this clear right now: "Freedom to" is !@#$%^&*. There's no possible way you can justify taking aggressive actions against other people, which is what this comes down to, and expecting there to be no consequences for doing so. That's not how things work.)

Morality Is Freedom; Ignorance Is Strength; Owned Is Awesome.

/thread

This has a lot to do with how exactly you define Morality or Freedom, and seeing as how they are both politically charged words, that is an almost impossible task to do.

Let's start with freedom. You can have "Absolute Freedom" - that is you can just wake up one day, go down the street and start shooting people, without any consequence to you whatsoever. This is of course an inherently impossible state - even in the absence of the rule of law, retaliation would occur - but it can be converted to more very day usage - Absolute Freedom would include being able to tech-raid others without allied retaliation due to some higher power (an alliance) making it so.

Of course, it readily becomes apparent that this kind of "Absolute Freedom" can only exist on an individual basis - if you have everyone trying to kill each other, they aren't free, they're dead. You can't really do anything you want when other people are also doing "anything they want" by putting a bullet in your head. Which is why "Absolute Freedom" merely ends up being a chaotic power contest where the strongest guy does what he wants, and the rest are anything but "free".

So, it becomes apparent that: 1) You can't have an "Absolute Freedom" for everyone where life is a video game and you can do anything you want, and 2) Freedom needs to include Freedom from the influence of outside forces (interference, retaliation, etc) as well as freedom to act. (Otherwise the forces of everyone else's freedom will become a restraining force of their own) This second trait is what requires the restriction of the actions of individuals - which means that while Absolute Freedom is denied to them, a more Conventional Freedom can exist. And something has to safeguard it in order to exist - which is where concepts such as laws and morality come in - they are what ensure a state of conventional freedom can exist.

In essence, this ironically means that in order for the people of society to be "free of restraints", those restraints have to be restrained.

I.E, the literal definition of freedom is a pipe dream, so everyone has to work in the shady gray area of a balance between restrictions imposed by morality/law/order and restrictions imposed by the unrestricted interference of other people.

I agree completely. Pack it up guys, this thread is over.

Jack Diorno walks into the room, and instantly realizes that the other nation rulers are debating whether or not morality is the same as freedom.
Jack Diorno takes a gun to his head and blows his brains out.

Why exactly are the two mutually exclusive?

Already been said, but these two should work hand in hand.

Ok, so who's doing what to help with the packing again?

It's a false dichotomy.

You cant have one without the other.

False freedom, or false morality, on the other hand, well then the answer is no, thanks.

I despise you all, except Francessca who is smarter then everyone here.

Here are some fun definitions:
Freedom - The condition of being free of restraints.
Morality - the degree to which something is morally acceptable

Freedom is living without restraint, morality is living within social standards.
They are not the same thing, William Wallace did not storm the English screaming "GIVE US MORALITY!!!!", and you certainly can have one without the other. It boggles my mind to think you wouldn't be able to be free if you didn't have morality, a man living alone in the desert doing whatever he likes is free, regardless of his morality.

Stupidest argument ever I swear.

This argument is akin to 'Han shot first.'

The answer is different for everyone based on their perspective.

And what version they saw.

Both. People should stick to their morals and never compromise, but at the same time they should still be given the option to make choices.

I'll take Freedom for my alliance rather than having Morals in an online simulation game. Sorry

True morality frees us all.

I choose not to vote as I disagree with the concept of morality being more important than freedom (or anything else, for that matter), but I also see other thing more important than freedom that could have taken the place of morality-- equality.

One could not have presented the case any more precise.

Maybe if Morality wasn't a joke, it would free you, but I hate to break it to you guys... But.. Morality is the biggest joke in CN ever.

Not bad, but invokes metaphor and contains ambiguity. Counteroffer:

Freedom - The state of being free from coërcion.



Right. In the everyday sense it includes related notions such as ethics. And it doesnt really define it, it simply pushes the definition to the adverb, how do you define "morally" then? But nonetheless we probably understand each other near enough even though it isnt actually a definition.

You could claim the same is true for the first, btw, both the original and my counter. It appears at a glance to push Freedom back to free. But in that case I think it is different - free in the sense of 'free from fleas' or whatnot is a related but distinct meaning. It doesnt matter.



Well obviously they dont have the same direct meaning.

However, they do indeed require each other.

Your man living alone in the desert is free only to burn in the sun and likely die before long. Even should he be so fortunate as to find food and water and shelter, avoiding deadly animals and treacherous footings, he can still do nothing but work hard everyday, live a short while, and die alone.

Humans are social animals. Human freedom must be defined in human terms. When are we free? When the other humans let us live in peace. When they practice free trade rather than demanding tribute of each other. When they form a society, and work together instead of against each other.

When they do NOT - that is when we really have our freedom taken.

You can certainly speak of an accident taking your freedom to walk away, but ultimately if no one else intentionally endangered you, that's in a different class of loss. There is no guarantee of any kind against 'acts of god' and at best we have a limited lifespan anyway.

But morality, to the extent it is actually practiced, is a characteristic of a society which makes the individuals within it normally more, not less free. In fact, without morality, your man in the desert really is more free than the rest, simply because the others will all be enemies, rather than forming a society. But only because of that - because even if he has no real freedom at all, at least he doesnt have a "negative balance."

Especially in CN it is applicable. You dont really loose something by standing up for your morals, the worst people can do to you is ruin your nation.

I'm a nice guy most of the time. I want the freedom to vent my inner dickhead in this wonderful internet game we have here.

Both really. Your morality should be such that you have the freedom to do what you please, and feel right about it.

I voted morality in the poll though because if it's one extreme over the other, freedom is more likely to get you rolled.

I agreed 100% up to the bolded part. That is why the game has gotten so boring...

I nulled my vote because to me they're the same. If you don't have the freedom to follow your morality then what is your morality? For me, they come hand in hand thus don't have one over the other. Freedom to do whatever you want is fine but it should be guided by your morality.

::inserts several lines from an Intro to Philosophy 101 class::


Oh wow, I'm a CN Philosopher too!

Jack wins. And I agree with Francesca for once. Any argument that states "morality = freedom" is full of fail.

Perhaps if you eliminate your alliance from the running.

Both can be used for good and bad IMO. Both can be used to place restrictions on others and control the way they live their lives.

For those saying morality=freedom you have basically missed the point. What is being discussed is do you afford yourself (or a group say your alliance) the personal freedom to persue your/its desires and ambitions irrespective of the effect it may have on others, or do you place limitations on yourself based on socially instilled moral principles.

My response is basically a cop-out. Ideally I like to think that I afford to myself absolute freedom, and that any act which is part of the overall scope of my ambitions, or desires that I can't rationally achieve I simply choose not to act on. So its not so much my own morality which restricts my actions but more the reality that violating the group morality would inhibit future movement. (Ex, while extortion might be expedient in the immediate for forcing the conformity of others; doing so would invoke a group reaction and prevent me from achieving the broader scope of my desires.

Elementary Ego Id principle. However, I do have some underlying ethics, such as loyalty, reciprocity, consistency; "honor" if you want to call it that. If someone does something for me i'll return the favor ect. Though my "morality" isn't based on certain actions being right or wrong, but more is subjective to the environment I am in, and is specific to people.

morality is practically an artificial set of bs rules