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I have a chemistry test tomorrow, and must be studying. So expect a longer response sometime later, because this discussion is highly enjoyable.

We have the philosophers in the thread, from which I argue good man Locke's tabula rasa. It is the most logically consistent and sound viewpoint to take on the issue of human morality when considering it from a nurture-focus standpoint, and as us solely through the view of humans being creatures of consciousness and intellectual growth. This is especially the case when, as was said previously, the nature of "good" and "bad" is highly subjective. I have to say the question itself seemed a bit overly simplistic!

We also have the psychologists in the thread, who argue more in turn for the factor of childhood trauma and the associated responsibility. Childhood trauma or events heavily influence the development of a person to be more or less "good" if taking tabula rasa as the assumed premises (which means taking out of account the two other opinions of inherent good or inherent evil). Although I do find the model a bit overly simplistic in its approach myself, Erikson's eight stages of development lay a basic groundwork for what we can consider a socially acceptable level of achieving "goodness" while attempting not to stray onto the path of a lack of self-fulfillment. This, due to the very nature of our society, is what we associate with "good" generally -- that is, an idea of altruism or selflessness. At the same time, this childhood (and really, entire adult influence) is indeed what helps influence decisions and experiences through cause-and-effect determinism. That being said, this does not remove the onus of responsibility away from the individual who can understand what may be wrong with whatever temperament may be affecting them, as Plums said.

My original tuppence in this thread come from scientific and historical literacy, which really only depend on the natural philosophy axioms to verify their degree of "sufficient truth", or what we know about ourselves so far, with enough supporting evidence, before it may either continue to be supported, denied, or waltz around as a combination of the two. Such is science. To take a mark at the Hobbesians who believe people are inherently evil and selfish, let it be noted that cooperation strategies were inherently necessary for society to develop as a whole. Is that acceptable on an individual basis? Well, individuals differ among each other. Is that "good"? I do not know, but the thread's idea of good seems to point towards cooperation with the fellow human. We continue to see this in children, and we continue to see this with the social aspects of humans as a whole. To gain what gains we have so far required some degree of putting the group before selfish desires. Let it also be noted that "civilization" or "society" are intensely subjective concepts tied to our viewpoints as citizens in an aforementioned society. Do we define anarchy as a lack of society, or civilization? Do we define tribal societies as a lack of society, or civilization? Hunter-gatherer parties have been famously egalitarian, and it is really the resource-distribution of early societies that caused the first inequalities we may have seen.

Civilization does not necessarily temper us away from "selfish ideals" in that very manner: it would be equally viable to argue that they have the ability to develop it from our history, but we then see how civilization has progressed to discourage us from such ideals. Human social consciousness is something that perpetually evolves and in this way it would thus be hard to pinpoint certain aspects as inherently bad or inherently good. We could call humans biologically cooperative as our nature being a social species. Does that make us good? Well, it depends, because morality is an intensely conscience-based thing not tied to simple natural sciences! Tabula rasa still stands, but with the plot skewed towards the imperative of biological cooperation. Does that make us inherently good? It makes us inherently cooperative, and it might even be why it causes us to feel compassion, empathy, and what have you (let it also be noted that many animals feel compassion and empathy, we are not unique). But even this can be changed or influenced by aspects in our environment.

poster's note: I wanted to link to the actual scientific journal papers instead of the popular science articles but I felt the latter would be more appropriate for everyone to understand what exactly the above concepts were in common-person-ese

Rituals? I slit my finger and draw an intricate Aramaic mysticism circle on the floor of my darkened room while lighting candles and praying to the great god Huitzilopochtli for a bountiful harvest with a daguerreotype print of Nyarlathotep hanging from my wall before watching any television show.

Clearly it is no contender against the beautiful work of art, pinnacle of all things Square, that is the Caravaggio-esque masterpiece of Final Fantasy: All The Bravest.

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{ m u s i c }​

[ around the world in eighty days ]​

Pah! Online classes in something as minor as this. Although it seemed stifling to the hundreds attending Fortissimo, it was almost liberating to Fatime.

She sat in her pajamas in her messy room, rolling her feet around and eagerly typing away on her laptop. Stacks of books were crowned with all kinds of origami creations -- swans, dragons, tigers, and of course, the little black-paper cranes that she loved to make. Her hands were worn and rife with small bandages, but she sighed contentedly as she submitted her first assignment quickly and quietly. She leaned back onto her bed and began to hum and chirp a small song to herself.

She wondered how the others in her class were doing? It is not like she had a chance to speak to them for a while, if ever. No, she had to be a bit like a ninja in her favourite books for the past few months. But that was okay ... right, right. This time she had a voice. This time, oh yes, the bird could sing.

She continued to hum a song and picked a tissue, like a flower, from the tissue box, gently wiping her eyes.
As the months passed by, Ayanna had noticed that Fatime cried more often. It was a small observation, and it was the only real one Ayanna had made recently, since she was always out of the house what with having to work more to support themselves. She stared at the black book that was a final gift to her and made a big show of a pout before tossing the tissue away onto the floor. Ever since then, Fatime teared up often, but it seemed less like any latent sadness than it was the only real way she could express emotion. Or perhaps it was latent sadness, but she never wanted to accept that. How could she, how could she!

But first things first, in her business. There was something she had to finish as her messenger-bird status.

Oh no. It had not been often she had typed a message to someone, so her fingers trembled more than usual. But all she could do is laugh it off, or try to ...

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{ 1 1 : 2 0 }​

He wasn't quite sure why he returned to expect to see all of these people again.

He wasn't quite sure why he returned to Candlewood at all, really. The plan was to leave and only come back if his quest brought him nothing, and alas, so it was to be. When he stepped off the boat, three days before, however, the excessive state of emergency Candlewood was in made Torvald realize that things had changed while he had been away.

No, no, never mind the fact that the streets grew quieter and more empty. Great walls were erected keeping the little ants from spreading their infections to the entire country. A few people walked by him on the street wearing thick black gas masks and he decided to purchase one of his own without a gruff word. Never mind the fact that he had been forcibly re-enrolled for another year in Fortissimo -- his last, before moving on to greener pastures, or sandy ones so to speak -- or that his dorm room had been swept clean and neat of his items in his departure, and he threw his coat upon the chair, but this time thought twice of it, picked it up, and neatly placed it on the rack.

He had not talked to a single person in his return, nor did he ever get the chance to. Nearly every student, every teacher, was holed up like a pigeon in their own little rooms, cut off from the world save from a tenuous string to the vast virtual web. It was here, of course, that he had been keeping himself entertained in his room for the last few days, refusing to remove himself out of his little bubble. The door was barricaded, and he set up an intricate system of empty chairs, a few lamps, tables, and even a potted ficus that could easily be removed from his side. He sat a laptop firmly on his knees, and looked down at the question, yawning behind his sleek black gas mask. The screen reflected in its bulbous plastic eyes.

This was tiring ... he had absolutely no motivation.
Torvald took out his phone.

Torvald leaned back onto his chair and yawned.
He might need to grab at least a few people to research whatever this virus was ... it was strange. In all of his time, he had never seen anything like it. A few freshly-opened medical texts lay serenely lounging on his bed, open to pages on hemorrhagic fevers and prion diseases. Nothing, nothing at all conflated with these symptoms. Did something so deadly spread so easily? It was a shame to have a plague in his life time ...

But Torvald chuckled to himself.

This shocks me! I wish he had another spark of creativity that would help electrify the series a bit more.

This is the greatest description of children I have ever seen because it could go either way depending on which cultural lens you decide to read the word through.

18.

Wait--

You could say that the zaibatsu of yours seemed to split apart. A touching and riveting tale of Japanese rebuilding in a post-World War II society. I am on the edge of my seat, because my interest reaches the levels of ... mugen.

It is a pleasure to have you among our rank and file, my good Japanese corporation! You can find all of the MUGEN-related things in some of the coding and video sections, I believe. You can also find the corporate human rights abuses -- all human rights abuses actually -- in the Spam Zone.

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{ m u s i c }​

[ their eyes were watching god ]​

The funeral had left her completely drained, and for once, Fatime could do nothing but lie in her bed, glancing at the ceiling.

For the morning she really did believe it was finally nice enough to be released from the little cage she had stayed cooped up in with the Professor, but as memories began to cascade through her mind she could barely keep up anything beyond a monotonous disposition. Slowly and slowly she felt more like a violet shrinking and shriveling in the deep winter sun, mocking and callous as the funeral's lazy speeches and tearful whimpers trudged on through the sick snow. Ayanna had not come to visit, but Fatime was not anymore surprised at this whatsoever. She gazed on as the funeral procession continued, hands shaking, feet in trembles, yet her gaze so distant, so detached, that she felt as if she were watching a movie. An event that would exist to her only in her fiction -- her books -- something to be analyzed for cautious entertainment and fickle understanding. She could not even serve to bear a tear, as much as she felt her lip tremble under pressure, as much as her heart grew thick like a stone. It was not wet, but dry and lifeless; the funeral gave no rain, for Fatime was but windswept decay.


She rolled to the side and looked at the window, where a deep indigo evening painted the sky, not a star to be seen as the chilling full moon loomed like a blank hole in space up above. It would very much be the last time she saw Lucas, wouldn't it be? Fatime closed her eyes. Idiot brother! He could never do anything right in his life and he gets himself killed. What kind of example would he be setting to his dear little sister?

She turned to look at the book he left her as his final gift. The bed was swept clean of its many paper cranes that had once thrived and roosted among its folds.

Fatime felt her mouth open and tremble, and she quickly bit back her teeth, squinting. She thumped her head into her pillow and let the tears forming at her eyes sweep away reality into an amorphous darkness. She slowly went back to sleep.

...

Do you have a fun license?

Gently hugs the above post and soothes the thread away from the drama.

There there. I will put flowers in your hair and sing you a lullaby.

The above sums up part of it in the context of a fundamental property of our universe.

While human morality is too complicated to stratify into something so binary as "good" or "bad", a quote like the one in the original post serves well enough to something we can generally relate to in our every day life. The easiest path is typically not the one that always brings fruit to our human desires, really. To get and move forward we require immense amounts of effort. Whether it is practicing for a concert, writing a novel, working on your boxing punches, or what have you. Effort is a fight against the latent inability to do things and more than anything it is a conflict of apathy versus this determined effort. The entropy example quoted above makes sense to give you a general idea of how our perceptions can exist in terms of doing things, but the difference lies in our conscious ability to change perhaps not a universal inevitability but a human analogue that is completely a product of our own creation, just as pliable as anything else fundamentally human.

What about good and bad in reality? There is no such thing. Human morality is extremely complicated -- though we can separate certain extremes onto both sides by all means, the vast majority of moral decisions lie in a unimodal grey hemisphere of varying "good"/"bad" levels. What is good and what is bad? Good typically falls under the ideas of cooperation and altruism while bad has historically been linked to selfish acts and a lack of clarity. Arguably, both of these base definitions exist in tandem to make humans what we are, and we would lose an integral part of ourselves -- whether it be our cooperative nature or our individualism, or both -- if we were to lose either of these. But are they good and are they bad? Again, those terms are highly binary for what in reality is something more than even a simple continuum of morality. Subjectivity plays a big part in our existence, and situations become the stage for all kinds of moral waltzes.

If people were to take a look at many of the other Departure threads then this selective departure is nothing new and is fairly commonplace. The rules on this point are a bit lax but it is nothing out of the blue and the like, and has happened many times in the past. While I have seen the lingering animosity for a good few months now I hardly believe it is the mature thing to start things in this thread when it can be dropped and over with and people can go back to their merry devices. That being said there is no one person to blame so I implore all of you to be the kind-hearted souls I know you are and cease this incessant bantering before feelings are hurt and things become worse.

People have reasons to depart and the like; it is personal. Leave it at that.
Thank you.

I am sorry to hear you need some time off, HoT. I hope things will become better.

I hear that the further you get through Bleach the more uncomfortable burning sensations you have, though.

The assumption seems to be that people are voting Sumi not because she is terrible (which she is not) but because she is not a staff member anyway.