Last she said; she didn’t care if she made mistake, just long she got the point across.

You know how I’m responding to you and not a strawman? Because of the numerous posts you’ve made where you specifically state two words in the following order. “Fuck Max.”

You’ve repeatedly failed to acknowledge that yes, he is in fact motivated by fear. He’s openly stated his concerns. Instead you keep talking about when he told Alison to get out, because as long as you focus on his refusal to help the person who showed up to tell him “I’m giving you a perfunctory apology that I clearly don’t mean because I want something from you, but I really do you’re a piece of crap and I refuse to extend any sympathy or empathy towards you for your situation,” you don’t have to acknowledge that he IS deserving of empathy.

So yes, I DO know what you’re going to say. The only way you could surprise me is if you came to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, Max deserves the same consideration as these others:

Mayhem: the guy who wanted to overthrow the existing social order with all its countless injustices and inequalities (i.e. the guy who, had he won, would have made the whole “Trump versus Clinton” dilemna irrelevant because we wouldn’t have had to put up with either of them).
Cleaver: the victim of horrific abuse who is lonely, miserable, and so desperately wants someone who understands him and will be his friend in spite of what he’s done.
Moonshadow: the former hero whose insufficient power levels led her to go to violent and horrible extremes because of the anger, fear, and jealousy inside of her.
Professor Cohen: seething inside with rage and grief because Alison’s heroics cost him the man he loved, to the point that every time he showed up to teach his class all he could see was his beloved’s murderer sitting there utterly oblivious to how she’d ripped his heart out with the toss of a robot and cheered as if she’d scored the winning point in a championship game.

Each of these individuals has been an adversary of Alison over the course of this comic. All of them have turned out to be more complex and complicated than the standard “I’m a bad guy and everything I do is driven by negative motives such as selfishness, greed, and narcissism.” Do you REALLY think that this one character, this one specific character, is going to be so two-dimensional and shallow in comparison to all the others?

(Also: who WAS that female first introduced with Cleaver? The one who showed him the recording of Alison’s unmasking and encouraged him to go after her? I noticed her when I went back through the archives to remind myself of Cohen’s name. Does anyone know?)

Actually, you’re right. I’ve confused you with the people who not only dismiss Max’s rights as a person, but also go on to claim “He’s rich, white, and biologically male, therefore he deserves nothing but scorn.” (Not their exact words, either… their EXACT words were “Fuck Max”)

You were the one who kept dismissing him as a person without adding the blatant racism/sexism/classism as an addendum. Before I go further, I need to apologize for that. I am sorry.

That being said… right now a Native American tribe and their supporters are preparing to go up against police officers who are planning to violence the hell out of them, at the behest of an oil company that wants to lay down a pipe that will contaminate the nearby drinking water that multiple States rely on. This is being done after legal roadblocks (aside from the fact that it was already illegal even before the moment the construction began) have been cleared away by the current POTUS. Said POTUS having been notorious in the private sector for relying on something called… Eminent Domain.

Eminent Domain basically means “You have to give up what you own for the Greater Good.” I.e. your house has to be demolished to make way for a highway to be built (y’know, like with Arthur Dent at the start of the Hitchhiker’s Trilogy). With Trump it ended up being “you need to give up your house so this guy can build a big building that will bring in increased tax revenue.” At least, that was the claim… the actual result was politicians getting richer, and Trump making some money (recooping some of his losses, in other words), and nobody else benefiting.

Same thing with this pipeline. And the one down in Texas is even worse – nobody in the State is benefiting other than the politicians. The natural gas will be funneled to Mexico for refinement, then sold in southeast asia. None of that will come back to Texas in any sort of benefit. It’s being rammed down people’s throats and the claim is that it’s for “the Greater Good.” When in fact it’s being done for selfish, selfish reasons.

(I should hasten to add: Clinton would have been doing the EXACT SAME THING had she won. There’s a reason why more people were hoping for a meteor to hit than for either of them to win)

Right now Gurwara is guiding Alison into understanding that this sort of “Greater Good” crap is exactly that. Crap. When you start devaluing people who have what you want, justifying that it’s okay to take things from them “for the Greater Good,” then you start creating a society where people have no value. People have offered up the example of “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” but I’d offer a better example: “the Lottery.” Where everyone draws a ticket and the “winner” gets stoned to death to ensure a bountiful harvest. Not only is it obvious that this offers no actual benefit, but the people most interested in keeping the lottery going are the ones who have consistently beaten the odds, who are convinced it will never be THEIR turn to hold the winning ticket.

Last time it was Max. Who would it be next time? What if Alison determines that in order to learn about the origins of her powers she has to go into space, and Paladin won’t build her a spaceship… until Alison starts ripping off her prosthetic limbs and holding them ransom until Paladin does this one simple thing? What if Alison needs hull plating more effective than what can currently be made – and Cleaver’s hide is the only viable substance currently known? And if it’s a long voyage, she’ll need a ready supply of oxygen… there’s a green skinned young woman who has never, ever been a hero, but she seems capable of photosynthesis…

The thing that impresses me most about Gurwara: he’s so CALM about this. The super strong, nigh invulnerable, emotionally unstable young person with a history as a child soldier just confessed to having tortured someone into doing something against his will, violating his freedom of choice, his stated ideological system, and his own physical body. And offered as her excuse “well, I don’t like him. I decided he’s not worth knowing as a person.” And this is after telling Gurwara “Fuck you” in the middle of class. “Hi there person I’ve previously established I don’t like. I just tortured someone I don’t like, can we talk about that?”

“The Lottery” is indeed an excellent comparison. As I said, in “the Lottery” there is no actual benefit – but the people who support it BELIEVE that there is. They genuinely believe that the village will be wiped out by some horrible calamity if they give up the lottery. “Other towns don’t even do a lottery anymore. There’ll be trouble, mark my words!”

Alison thinks that she’s done the right thing. But in addition to the fact that we STILL don’t know that the effects are going to be permanent and that there won’t be any side effects, the fact remains that she told him, “I have decided this is the right thing to do. You will do what I think is right or I will force you to do so with violence because I am right and that makes it okay.” (It’s shown in “the Lottery” that nobody really gets a choice in the matter. And when they finally select a “winner” in the end, her own children are given stones to throw at their mother)

Your short story would have to have a few more plot twists to be more apt. First of all, Alice would have to have been a very unpleasant and hostile person towards Bob, to the point that she couldn’t even be polite or decent to Bob while demanding that he push the button to help everyone except himself. Second, Bob would have had to have pointed out that pushing the button and lowering the shield would also expose him to potentially lethal doses of radiation from the plutonium being hidden by that shield. And third, Bob’s response would have to have been, “I just tried to point out how you’re asking me to endanger myself and those I care about, and you not only refused to acknowledge that, you twisted my words into an insult against you. And then insulted me. I don’t want to have anything to do with you now.” The execution chamber door opened again and another person was horribly killed, but Alice blamed Bob for that rather than accept that she might have sabotaged her own efforts by being unable to not be a jerk for five minutes.

(again, I’m sorry about the mixup regarding your position)

The reason it can be compared to “the Lottery” is that the people involved BELIEVED that it would save lives. Just like Alison believed it. And rather than try to reason with him or reach him, she insulted him, asked him rudely, and then went straight to the violence.

Alison didn’t just find the guy with the button and make sure he pressed it. She found the guy and told him, “you are now a slave. You will push that button whenever I want, to do whatever I want. You will expect no recompense, not even a thank you. Be grateful I don’t spit in your face after using you.”

So… let’s modify your story to be more precise:

“Suddenly, Alison appeared on a screen in the room. ‘Bob, you asshole, I can’t believe you’re not pressing that button while people are dying,’ she said. ‘Also just so you know, there’s no potentially lethal radiation at all, there’s just like a really tiny risk that someone will figure out you were the button guy.” This was a blatant lie and she truly did not care; she cared about those people being killed, but Bob was someone she had never liked ever since they’d broken up.

“…Lady, I can see the geiger counter screaming,” Bob pointed out. “I’ve been in here all my life, I KNOW there’s radioactive material there. I was shown it when I was sealed in here as a consequence of my physical condition. That’s why I’m here with that button. You see, because of what my parents have done…”

The execution chamber door opened again and another person was horribly killed, and Alison grew truly incensed. “I don’t CARE about your issues!” she snapped, cutting him off in the middle of revealing secrets about a conspiracy she’d been investigating. “You’re a selfish person and their lives matter more! Frankly, you even talking about medical issues is offense and insulting to me, because I have a genetic predisposition to natural athleticism that makes people jealous of me!” She took a deep, shuddering breath, and tears began to flow because her emotional displays always made her arguments more weighty than mere logic or facts ever could. “…Now please… one of the people I care about is hooked up to this machine, it’s hurting her as long as it’s running. So HELP HER!”

“…You know what?” Bob said. “You claim to care about other people, but I just tried to tell you about my own problems, about why someone would be sealed in a room with a button like this in the first place, and you can’t be bothered to listen. You pretend to be selfless, but you’re actually a horribly selfish person. You don’t REALLY care about these other people. You care about your friend. You’d have rescued your friend and damned all these others if you could…”

It was at this point that Alison broke through the wall of Bob’s room, punched him in the face, then slammed his head onto the button. Everyone who wasn’t dead yet was freed from their shackles. “Shut up! Shut up!” Alison screamed, her voice strident with self righteous tones. “I did the right thing here! i saved all these people! That’s the reason!”

“…You… you did this… for her…” Bob sputtered, and was shoved away by a defiant Alison, who screamed a long, loud, emotional wail to drown out his logic. She knew in her heart she must avoid listening to him, lest he cast doubt on the righteousness of her mission.

As Bob cowered on the floor of his room, hoping desperately not to die from the radiation shooting at the now open windows by taking cover under the console, Alison strode out to rescue her friend and take her to get some hamburgers. She felt a little guilty… but that was okay, because she did it for the greater good. And she would just keep telling herself that, and that would make everything okay.

First of all: The radiation is a an analogy for the very very real and serious risk of exposure as having a power that makes him an irresistibly tempting target for any biodynamic. We know that to be the case because we’ve seen it – the first biodynamic who showed up at his door with knowledge of his abilities proceeded to enslave him for her purposes. The fact that you support her ends does not change that. He lives in fear of being a target, and his fears have been proven 100% justified. The analogy of the radioactive material exists, it’s real, it’s just blasted him in the face.

Second: if you want to focus on the fact that Bob/Max wants to let thousands of people die, then you cannot absolve Alice/Alison for wanting to do THE EXACT SAME THING. She begged Feral not to get on that table. She was prepared to use force to stop Feral from getting on that table, until Feral made it clear it was her choice and Alison could not stop her. Did she understand that Feral was doing something good? Yes – but she was opposed to it from the start. She wasn’t looking to save lives, she was looking to save Feral.

Third: you’re right that Alison is sickened by her own actions. It reminds me of a woman who, some years back, told the judge how very, very sorry she was. And the jury. And everyone else. She even told the homeless guy. Specifically, the homeless guy she hit with her car, before driving home and parking in the garage with the guy still embedded in her windshield. She kept coming into the garage to apologize again and again, because she felt so awful… meanwhile he spent the weekend slowly dying and begging her to call help.

The fact that Alison is feeling guilty about it now, second-guessing the rash, stupid, and immoral actions made when she was riding a wave of adrenaline, excitement, and self-righteousness, means that she herself would be the first to disagree with you here. It’s a telling point that Gurwara didn’t ask her if she would condemn thousands to die to undo what she did to Max; he asked her if she would return Feral to the operating table to undo what she did to Max.

Fourth: I am not strawmanning Alison. I’m disagreeing with your disdain for Max and his own rights. The thousands of innocent lives (who, I repeat, Alison regarded as a SECONDARY concern; they were only important to her because saving them was key to saving Feral) do not give anyone the right to deny his rights. Even Alison has made it clear in these weeks of comics that she acknowledges that Max had rights and she violated them. Her conversation with Gurwara is about her attempting to come to terms with what she acknowledges was a horrible thing to do, even if you do not.

I don’t know about you, but I live in a westernized nation. And… I harm people just by existing. It’s not that I want to, or that I choose to. The corporations that provide the food in my home do so by violating the rights of others as much as they possibly can. I take steps to minimize the impact (buying fair market coffee, etc), but the fact remains that the only way to truly help all the people I am involuntarily aiding to oppress would be to conscript me into service as an anti-corporate guerilla for the few short weeks I have before I starve to death rather than consume food. Heck, even if I go to homesteading and raise my own food, I’m still subsisting on other living things.

You cannot use the concept of “preemptive heroism” to justify actions that harm others. You can’t justifiably arrest someone, let alone throw them in prison, for a crime they haven’t committed but might commit someday. You can’t justifiably hit someone because you thought they were going to hit you so you hit them back first. And you can’t violently assault someone and enslave them for forced labor in order to save people you don’t even know, just because that will help your friend.

One: “Risk of someone finding out about his power” translates as “someone immediately resorting to violent coercion to force him to use his powers without his free consent. Not only have we seen that in comic books (the USAgent, a substitute Captain America whose identity was revealed and his parents were dead less than a week later; Spider-Man and that horrible “One More Day” storyline; Storm being kidnapped by alien barbarians to power the device they use in lieu of a sun), but also in other media (that Transformers show where they were fighting over the minicons – who had fled to get the hell away from both sides), and in RL (kidnappings for ransom, or just to force a relative to use their skills). So yeah, people finding out about his powers is a genuine threat to his life and those of anyone close to him – as Alison proved. To refuse to entertain the “ridiculous” comparison is to dismiss and ignore what’s ALREADY HAPPENED in the comic. “I’m the first biodynamic to find out about your powers. I’m also one of the least amoral biodynamics you’re likely to encounter. YOU WILL USE YOUR POWERS FOR MY BENEFIT.” The only reason it wasn’t worse is that Alison is not capable of cold blooded sadism like some of the other biodynamics out there.

Two/Four: That’s not even a discussion of Alison’s motivations or actions. That’s YOUR motivations, YOUR beliefs. You are not Alison. She did something you agree with, but that does not mean it was ever her intention, and the comic continues to show that she would disagree with you herself, or with a character introduced to tell her, “no, you did the right thing!”

Three: That more precisely applies to TWO individuals. The first is Alison in the heat of the moment itself. Rationalizing and justifying her actions so she can go through with it. Using anger and other emotions as a shield against logic or her own conscience. You cannot tell me that you have never done something in a fit of anger that you later regretted once you’d calmed down.

The second is… you yourself. You keep going back to “this one act saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and that makes it totally justified.” Even though it was not primarily intended to save thousands of lives. Even though there are going to be horrific consequences. You keep bringing up the “thousands of lived saves, and that trumps all else” and then dismissing the positions of others, and also dismissing… her victim. Who is a victim, and you keep refusing to acknowledge that. You keep going back to “he was selfish, he did it to spite her, he didn’t want to lift a finger, he’s crying because she twisted his arm a little when he refused to get off his ass with no risk to himself.” Who’s doing the strawmanning here?

Five: Yes, you’re right. There are MANY more effective and less transparently awful ways to help the poor. Just as there were MANY more effective and less transparently awful ways to convince Max to help, and every single one of them began with treating him as a person and not the obstacle to the use of these wonderful powers inconveniently attached to someone not worth knowing. You keep dismissing the fact that Max is at just as great a risk from exposure as homosexuals like Alan Turing were in the 1950s, even though – as I’ve already pointed out – the comic and Alison herself have proven that he’s at risk even from the most seemingly benevolent biodynamic.

Six: Alison did not act to save lives that were currently, objectively endangered. Alison acted to save Feral. Her heroism was roughly on a par with a D&D adventurer who kills a monster for pay. She was not selfless here, she was horribly selfish. The only reason she saved those lives is because that was a precondition set by Feral – and Feral is the truly selfless one here.

Yes, the motivation does matter. Especially when it influences the actions and the results. Max has been traumatized – because it wasn’t “arm twisted by a heroic girl,” it was “threatened with torture/murder by the world’s most powerful flying brick.” His rich, sociopathic parents are going to get involved when they find out their child has been assaulted by a superpowered stalker. The moment those doctors find out they were deceived into performing a procedure involving an unwilling participant they will be outraged (and horrified and in fear of losing their medical licenses). And Feral herself is likely to be annoyed with what Alison did. Again, it’s not that she saved lives. It’s that she did so in the stupidest fashion possible, when there were so many better ways to convince him. (And yes, those methods might have involved precious minutes in which people were dying… but again: Alison didn’t care about that)

Like I said, that’s been my point. You dismiss the point as irrelevant even though it’s relevant to everyone else – including the characters. It’s the point being discussed in the comics right now, in fact. But yes, go ahead and do this:

http://cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/486/486673.jpg

Excellent points. 😀

Ionizing radiation is a fact of life, and most life on earth does a decent job of coping with it provided it remains below a given threshold relative to and dependent on the type of radiation.

I used to work with radioactive sources daily when I worked construction inspections, did the annual training, and our company also had twice annual reviews of updated safety procedures and individual radiation accumulation data. When I had a HUGE radiation spike noted on my radiation badge from one quater, I had to have a re-training session and feedback session, as well as a questionnaire to fill out. That rad-badge was reassessed after the next quarter’s badge was turned in and assessed (revealing my usual *very* low radiation excess above background), and the first spike didn’t fit their diagnostic patterns, so again with the questionnaires, this time two or three more pages.

Finally, the company that does the assessment of the badges asked if, at any time, I had left my badge in direct sunlight through a focusing lens, like a windshield. Thinking back, I said that was possible – I seemed to recall having left it on the dash on a day I wasn’t carrying my nuclear gauge. When they processed it again, apparently the relevant rad levels were well within the requirements. They sent notification on what their analysis revealed (essentially, I was a dumb-ass who didn’t think about what I was doing) and issued updated protocols. They also modified the badges slightly (or so we were told). Never had a problem ever again.

Even following the safety protocols, it’s really easy to screw up the safety protocols, even when dealing with very low-yield sources. Mind you, this isn’t at all the levels you’re referencing, but even the low yield sources can be quite dangerous over time if not treated with respect (Cesium and Americium can kill people over time if unshielded).

And don’t get me started on the mess caused when a tech from another company let his gauge get run over by an earth-mover and the containment structures shattered. He got *very* lucky that the sources themselves remained intact.

Good times…

Oh, dear. *covers mouth, tries to avoid giggling*

No, there is not a sex offender in charge of the U.S. One: the POTUS is not “in charge,” he’s restrained by assorted checks and balances (which is why he’s recently been tweeting about how the judges are traitors to the country for… not letting him do things). And two: he was accused of rape during the campaign by an opponent increasingly desperate for mud to sling at him, and the investigation was closed within a week because it was just a made up charge.

(not saying he hasn’t done LOTS of other crap. But he didn’t rape anyone. Bill Clinton, on the other hand…)

By Trump’s own admission he’s a sex offender. What was the line: “Grab them by the p—y,” Trump says. “You can do anything.” That’s sexual assault under the law of most first world nations.

Even if we go with your interpretation, he’s talking sexual assault as something he aspires to, as something he considers ‘manly’ (gag!). And I’m nowhere near so convinced it was just talk.

“I have not dismissed Max as a person.”

No, you’ve just dismissed his civil rights for convenience. There’s a philosophical debate as to whether that is justified, but you seem reluctant to accept that there are two justified sides to that debate, cf suggesting people who disagree with you aren’t valuing the transplant patients.

I’ll reword something you said: “The Max situation, in contrast, is pretty cut and dry: one abuse of civil rights, one precedent set, to save thousands.”

That doesn’t really change the equation, small harm for a greater good, but it does illustrate that we’re not simply dealing with some insignificant fistfight in the playground, but with a true moral dilemma, where people can expect to have different views.

Good response.

I do think there are cases where it may be necessary to violate individual rights, but I don’t think ‘necessary’ and ‘right’ are necessarily the same thing in those cases. ‘necessary evil’ is probably closer. And I’m not convinced the Max situation is one of those. It’s edging too close to aspects of modern slavery and squicks me out.

And it would be really easy for it to become precedent setting in Max’s case. ‘Hey, it would be really easy to track these fugitives if Bloodhound Gal was just a bit better at it. Someone go grab Max and twist his arm.’

I think Max may be screwed. Alison a) ran a hypothetical past her biodynamics doctor, if she wasn’t already in the know about Max, she’s likely to figure it out when she hears about Feral. b) is moping around, clearly badly upset about something, and people are going to ask why. And c) Feral, you have to love Tara for who she is, but she’s not exactly discrete and low-profile. She doesn’t know about Max’s role, yet, but she may start to thinking about it, and if she doesn’t, others will.

WRT your second point; yes, I’m drawing a distinction between necessary and morally justifiable. I don’t believe they’re necessarily the same thing. As to when things may be necessary, I can envision situations in which it may be necessary to expose civilians to harm in order to ensure the safety of many more. However that comes with the caveat of there being no alternative, and a need for immediate action, neither of which apply with Max (there may be an urgent need, WRT some potential transplant recipients, but the infrastructure to handle Tara’s increased rate of production isn’t there yet).

WRT “morally justifiable” and “necessary”, I think there is a distinction. This is the best example I can think of: “Tell me where the bomb is, or I torture* your child”.

*Torture sucks as a general intelligence gathering technique, no matter what the Idiot in Chief may claim, you start sticking things into me and I’ll start making up answers to make you stop. But there are a limited set of circumstances in which it might give an immediately verifiable answer. But it’s still unforgiveable, particularly if you target it on an innocent.

I don’t think you can ever justify torturing an innocent. At the same time I can envisage circumstances in which someone would feel compelled to do it. I don’t believe they should be able to walk away from the moral consequences of what they did (and if they can, they shouldn’t have been allowed to be in that position). If someone is in a position where they’re navigating themselves between Scylla and Charybdis, then they’ve probably put themselves there as a matter of perceived duty, rather than finding themselves there by chance.

You’re looking at morality and virtue as a single status, I think it’s far more complex than that. There’s virtue in putting yourself between the herd and the predators. That doesn’t mean there aren’t situations where protecting the many might require you to do something unthinkable. But if that choice arises, then taking it is a part of your duty. It’s possible for a course to be both honourable and dishonourable at the same time. I find myself thinking of the 47 Samurai. though it isn’t a perfect analogy as their ‘unthinkable’ was simply to go on living until they could avenge their lord.

The use of appropriate force to defend other people from immediate threat is something I don’t have a problem with.

But torture isn’t appropriate force. It’s outlawed under international law, it’s applied by definition to someone who is constrained, and in the scenario I sketched it’s applied to an innocent. There are scenarios where we might invoke it, but it’s still anathema.

It’s not something we should forgive ourselves for.

Horrifying. I know I would be terrified of a cracker that eats bitches.