Current Events > Have you ever committed a war crime?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I worked with drones for a while in the air force so it's possible I tangentially connected to one

I sometimes use jalapenos in Asian food if I don't have any Asian chilis, that's probably more along the lines of a hate crime though.

I've never understood the psychopathy behind people killing civilians but I guess it's because I haven't lost my humanity & empathy yet.

I'm doing a more evil playthrough in baldur's gate 3, & as soon as you start killing civilians who can't fight back, it just makes you question how a person could enjoy killing those who can't fight back. There's no thrill or sport in it, it's vapid & empty, I just don't get it.

hereforemnant posted...

I've never understood the psychopathy behind people killing civilians but I guess it's because I haven't lost my humanity & empathy yet.

I'm doing a more evil playthrough in baldur's gate 3, & as soon as you start killing civilians who can't fight back, it just makes you question how a person could enjoy killing those who can't fight back. There's no thrill or sport in it, it's vapid & empty, I just don't get it.

I've always taken it as a good sign that even in games where doing the "bad" thing gets you a better reward I still don't tend to do it because it actually makes me feel bad. An extra hundred gold just isn't worth me feeling bad siding against a single mom just trying to make it, even if she's not a real person.

codey posted...

I've always taken it as a good sign that even in games where doing the "bad" thing gets you a better reward I still don't tend to do it because it actually makes me feel bad. An extra hundred gold just isn't worth me feeling bad siding against a single mom just trying to make it, even if she's not a real person.

Well in BG3 it's the opposite lol. You objectively get a worse ending, & less rewards & content for doing the more evil path. It's a terrible thing to do your first time through because it cuts out a lot of the game.

Even if larian studios said that it would be complete as an experience, it's like 60-70% of the game compared to a more lawful playthrough, & you feel like shit more for doing an evil route because of what happens.

I can't think of more than a handful of games that did 'evil' right in a video game, Spec Ops The Line being a prime example. Most of the time you're just an irredeemable piece of shit with no character morals or nuance lol

I put mayo on a hot dog once.

hereforemnant posted...

I've never understood the psychopathy behind people killing civilians but I guess it's because I haven't lost my humanity & empathy yet.

I'm doing a more evil playthrough in baldur's gate 3, & as soon as you start killing civilians who can't fight back, it just makes you question how a person could enjoy killing those who can't fight back. There's no thrill or sport in it, it's vapid & empty, I just don't get it.

In real life it's done to instill fear, as a form of vengeance, bloodlust is another, also economic gain since killing someone and taking their property is a way to make money. One could just take a look at what's happening around the world today, but at the very least there's the concept that one shouldn't attack civilians in war even if it's not always enforced and that's it's a crime to do so.

I like to study ancient history and violence towards civilians isn't in short supply. Gabriel Baker's Spare no one: mass violence in Roman warfare is a good read on how the destruction of Corinth and Carthage wasn't an anomaly but part of Roman's strategy when it came to conquest by inflicting mass violence towards civilians. The Ancient Greeks were also no strangers towards the use of mass violence towards the innocent. I think Hans van Wees paper on King Agesilaos of Sparta treatment of abandoned enslaved children, elderly and sick is telling on how brutal these societies behaved during war because he makes the case that the act of just grouping the abandoned elderly, sick and children, and nothing else, was a worthy praise of his humanity when it came to slavers leaving behind enslaved people which at times you had children, including babies, being left alone and being eaten by wild animals as Xenophon explains. This simple act was even enough to make enslaved people take a liking to King Agesilaos according to Xenophon. In the Education of Kyros by Xenophon there's a passage that reflects this attitude towards civilians perfectly.

For it is a law established for all time among all men that when a city is taken in war, the persons and the property of the inhabitants thereof belong to the captors. Education of Cyrus 7.5.73

We get a real sense of the chaos and carnage that occurred towards civilians from the account of the sacking of Motya by a Greek army under the command of the tyrant Dionysios of Syracuse by Diodoros:

Straightway Dionysius' entire army burst into the city, coming also by the mole, and now every spot was a scene of mass slaughter; for the Sicilian Greeks, eager to return cruelty for cruelty, slew everyone they encountered, sparing without distinction not a child, not a woman, not an elder.

Dionysius, wishing to sell the inhabitants into slavery for the money he could gather, at first attempted to restrain the soldiers from murdering the captives, but when no one paid any attention to him and he saw that the fury of the Sicilian Greeks was not to be controlled, he stationed heralds to cry aloud and tell the Motyans to take refuge in the temples which were revered by the Greeks.

When this was done, the soldiers ceased their slaughter and turned to looting the property; and the plunder yielded much silver and not a little gold, as well as costly raiment and an abundance of every other product of felicity. The city was given over by Dionysius to the soldiers to plunder, since he wished to whet their appetites for future encounters.
Diodorus 14.53.1-3

This is just from the context of the ancient world but through history you see this sort of violence inflicted towards civilians and often times it's perceived as justified.

Not yet. But I have plenty of time left.

Once I did want a true gentleman never does.

hereforemnant posted...

I've never understood the psychopathy behind people killing civilians but I guess it's because I haven't lost my humanity & empathy yet.

I'm doing a more evil playthrough in baldur's gate 3, & as soon as you start killing civilians who can't fight back, it just makes you question how a person could enjoy killing those who can't fight back. There's no thrill or sport in it, it's vapid & empty, I just don't get it.

Killing the helpless quickly grows old.
-Perfect Cell

I made George Washington commit genocide once, in Civilization 5, when I wiped out all other civs

I'm no Henry Kissinger.

Yes, I have played RuneScape
https://web.archive.org/web/20210131170605/https://www.reddit.com/r/2007scape/comments/l9ggws/osrs_violates_the_geneva_conventions_yes_really/

(this reddit post actually got the devs to change it)