Wasteland Wasteland 2 Thread - Director's Cut

[IHaveHugeNick]

I saved Highpool, because I was already on my way there when alert barked on the radio.

So much for tough moral decisions.

 

[Kaivokz]

If I get an urgent emergency call, I don't sit down and consider the possible worth of biotechnology for the future of mankind and try to assess its potential long-term effects on the human population, write a paper about it and discuss it with my peers. I go where and I can make the biggest immediate difference and where my help is needed the most.

I don't like to weight the value of the life of a human being like this.

I put what I think are the relevant parts of your sentence in bold. Unless we're talking about immediate reflexive decision making, then you have time to at least consider the potential long-term effects of your actions. If you don't think about how your actions will affect the world besides immediately, you aren't a very effective decision maker--moral or otherwise--so I'm betting that you actually do consider the long-term effects of your actions.

You may not like weighing the values of human lives, but by living in this world you already have your finger on the scale -- anything you do will tip the balance (or stop the balance from tipping). That's the burden of all moral agents.

I agree with you Sausage, that thinking it through and "playing God" is unpleasant - in fact I'd say that only a real asshole could ever feel good about it - so, emotionally, I'm sympathetic to the point of view whereby you don't think about it too much, do the obvious thing, and save the most people; but deep down I have to agree with Kaivokz. Spider-Man taught us that when no one else can make the decision, you have to man up and do what's right. To refuse consideration of the future implications, just because you don't want to be responsible for the immediate consequences, is simply selfish.

Thanks, Zombra. That's what I was getting at. Unfortunately I am not a real asshole and so if I were ever presented with a mutually exclusive choice between atrocities where I ended up condemning innocents, I would feel shitty about it. Regardless of my feeling shitty, I would certainly attempt to do what was best given my utility values and the probabilities that I assign to the rationally expected outcomes of my actions.

Even if we leave the crucial issue of water out the equation, the difference would be that you guys can't even be sure in any way about the long term consequences of your decision. You'd condemn a whole city to slaughter on an educated guess that the scientific research may some day be of use and could potentially be valuable. Eventually. Perhaps.

[...]

Say you have two burning houses in front of you. In one house are a bunch of kids and in another a renowed medical researcher, expert on cancer. Are you going to save the doctor just because he is educated and may or may not come up with a cure to cancer at some point in the future? Do you think my decision to rescue the kids would be irresponsible?

Your first argument doesn't support your choice, it supports moral indifference or moral impotence. Of course I'm operating on an educated guess. Unless you're omniscient and perfectly rational, then you are too and so is every other human who has ever made a decision.

I also don't desire to get bogged down in hypotheticals, but there is probably some fuzzy indeterminate cut-off where if the number of kids was large enough and I could, with high probability, save them all in some fashion, then I would. However, if one building has n number of kids and the other has 1 doctor, I'd save the doctor and then save as many kids as possible. If it's one or the other, yeah I'd save the renowned medical researcher. The number of men, women, and children that the progression of medical science can save/enhance greatly outweighs the number of kids that I can pull out of a burning building, however regrettable it is that they die. If I know the researcher is a hack who won't likely contribute anything, by all means I'd save the kids--their conjoined potentiality greatly outweighs the worth of a charlatan or any other disvalued person (criminal, etc.).

I would call your decision irresponsible, but I would understand why you made it. It's certainly the easier choice.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

then you have time to at least consider the potential long-term effects of your actions.

I will say it just one more time: You do not have sufficient information to appropriately judge the long-term effects. To base a choice about the life of so many people on a shitty gamble is irresponsible.

I would call your decision irresponsible, but I would understand why you made it. It's certainly the easier choice.

Logic dictates that letting a bunch of children burn is the responsible choice? Okay, then.

 

[Kaivokz]

I will say it just one more time: You do not have sufficient information to appropriately judge the long-term effects. To base a choice about the life of so many people on a shitty gamble is irresponsible.

Logic dictates that letting a bunch of children burn is the responsible choice? Okay, then.

A semantic point: Logic doesn't give two shits what you or I value. By itself it dictates nothing (except perhaps tautological or contradictory claims--logic dictates that "some red apples aren't apples" is always false and "I ate an apple for lunch or I didn't eat an apple for lunch" is always true, but it doesn't do any normative work when it comes to decisions). If you want to know the best way to carve off a face and wear it around like a realistic mask, then logic will give you the best way within your means.

In any case, if your justification for saying I don't have sufficient information is that I can't perfectly predict what will happen, then no one has justification for anything. As it is, I think we are in an epistemic position such that we are justified in saying: The progress of modern medicine is probably going to save more people than I can pull out of burning buildings. A renowned genius in the field of cancer research could plausibly hold the key in his mind to the next big jump in the progress of medicine. Therefore, if given the option I should save the renowned genius over a group of children that I know nothing about.

Like Zombra said, it's dishonest to act like letting the doctor die doesn't have ramifications beyond the immediate. You're putting yourself on shakier epistemic grounds by asserting that we should save a bunch of kids that we know nothing about except for the fact that they are kids. We have more information about what the doctor is going to do if he lives than we do about what the kids will do and the information we have about the doctor supports the idea that he will contribute to the well-being of humanity in some way, thereby bettering kids as a whole instead of privileging the well-being of a group of children who just happen to be temporally and spatially closest to you at the moment.

I can give a similar argument for the AG Center vs. Highpool hypothetical, though beyond a passing curiosity into the motivations of different people here, I have no strong opinions about whether you should save AG center or Highpool

 

[DosBuster]

Man, when you put that much thought into video games, EVERYTHING must suck.

 

[prodigydancer]

So much for tough moral decisions.

You can't be everywhere at once and in either case you'd be trying to save people so it's not much of a moral decision. It's more of a strategic decision.

Highpool is slightly closer to the Citadel on the map and is first to send a distress call. It's a water source but there are other sources, albeit less reliable. Also water will still be there, just harder to get to. On the other hand AG Center is a source of food and, more importantly, your only scientific research center. But it's further away and when you hear about the attack you're probably already en route to Highpool.

So the choice is actually between short term comfort (Highpool) and the prospect of long term QoL improvement (AG Center). There's one thing that complicates the matter however. Although scientists did not press the red button they undeniably contributed to the world's destruction by making nuclear weapons possible at all. One can easily see how a group of uneducated wastelanders forced to live in misery until they joined the Rangers has a good reason to be prejudiced against science in general. So there's an RP angle to it too.

 

[Excidium II]

Highpool is slightly closer to the Citadel on the map and is first to send a distress call.

That's wrong, Ag. Center is closer.

 

[Zombra]

I think we are in an epistemic position such that we are justified in saying: The progress of modern medicine is probably going to save more people than I can pull out of burning buildings. A renowned genius in the field of cancer research could plausibly hold the key in his mind to the next big jump in the progress of medicine. Therefore, if given the option I should save the renowned genius over a group of children that I know nothing about.

To look at it another way, if there's even a 1 in 1000 chance that this guy will save 1,000,000 lives by curing cancer, statistically speaking he is far more valuable in terms of life-saving than 100 threatened orphans. Cold, but true. Shit SausageInYourFace, didn't you read Watchmen?

 

[ArchAngel]

The ending slide says it lessens the number of outbreaks, it doesn't prevent them entirely, like what happens when you save the ag center and cure the outbreak places.

Don't know about that, I didn't finish the game.

 

[Kaivokz]

To look at it another way, if there's even a 1 in 1000 chance that this guy will save 1,000,000 lives by curing cancer, statistically speaking he is far more valuable in terms of life-saving than 100 threatened orphans. Cold, but true. Shit SausageInYourFace, didn't you read Watchmen?

Yeah, exactly.

Man, when you put that much thought into video games, EVERYTHING must suck.

Putting a lot of thought into video games makes everything else suck less. It's a discharge of mental effort into something simple and mostly self-contained--a nice contrast to the problems of modern physics and philosophy. Though if your day job doesn't require putting a lot of thought into something, I could see how thinking about a vidya game could be a step up the ladder.

 

[Bubbles]

To look at it another way, if there's even a 1 in 1000 chance that this guy will save 1,000,000 lives by curing cancer, statistically speaking he is far more valuable in terms of life-saving than 100 threatened orphans. Cold, but true. Shit SausageInYourFace, didn't you read Watchmen?

If the cancer researcher made it absolutely clear that he would kill himself if you didn't murder 1,000 people for him, would you do it?

 

[Zombra]

If the cancer researcher made it absolutely clear that he would kill himself if you didn't murder 1,000 people for him, would you do it?

Very good question. The answer is no. Observe:

The researcher's statistical life-saving average (using the previous problem's numbers) is 1,000 (1,000,000 saved divided by a 1 in 1,000 chance = 1,000). In effect, his demand is that I murder 1,000 people to (statistically) save 1,000 people. Clearly this cancels out, so does not matter one way or the other. However, these numbers do not factor in the value of the researcher's own life: if I commit the murders, then he is rescued from death, for a net gain of one life saved. However, leaving his potential for good works aside (as I must, since they have been canceled in the first half of the problem), we are left only with the question of the value of the life of an odious, crazed blackmailer who I feel the world is better off without. Therefore I do nothing and allow him to die.

 

[Onholyservicebound]

One thing to consider is that the ag center seems to have a pretty bad track record, I mean, like the other poster said, you're risking lives on the gamble that they might someday achieve anything, but knowing them, they're more likely to achieve a Wasteland of sentient vegetables that feed on human flesh than they are anything that actually helps the Wasteland. (That dumbass Sue kid for example, makes it pretty clear that Ag center currently doesn't really do anything for the Wasteland.)

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Cold, but true. Shit SausageInYourFace, didn't you read Watchmen?

As a matter of fact, I did, and Alan Moore does argue exactly against this kind of extraordinarily warped logic. Ozymandias is not the hero in the story but the villian.

 

[Zombra]

As a matter of fact, I did, and Alan Moore does argue exactly against this kind of extraordinarily warped logic. Ozymandias is not the hero in the story but the villian.

Sorry dude - that's as black and white shortsighted as it gets. Guess we'll have to agree to disagree here. If the guy who saves Earth from nuclear war is a villain, then the world needs more villains. You 'heroes' can stick to your puppy rescues and warm fuzzy photo ops while your 'villains' do the real work of saving the goddamn world.

 

[Daedalos]

Murdering 1000 people for a low low chance of curing cancer? Lel no. If the chance had been higher, sure, 100 % worth.

It would equal some average joe telling me, that he had the cure for cancer.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

I don't want to sound patronizing but I really think you misread Watchmen. Anyway, lets indeed just agree to disagree here.

Man, I haven't even played these last few days because I am still waiting for the fucking patch goddammit.

 

[ArchAngel]

Sorry dude - that's as black and white shortsighted as it gets. Guess we'll have to agree to disagree here. If the guy who saves Earth from nuclear war is a villain, then the world needs more villains. You 'heroes' can stick to your puppy rescues and warm fuzzy photo ops while your 'villains' do the real work of saving the goddamn world.

I am sure Hitler had a mathematical proof of the sacrifices Jews and others had to do so he can save the world. Poor Hitler, nobody understood his math

 

[Kaivokz]

As a matter of fact, I did, and Alan Moore does argue exactly against this kind of extraordinarily warped logic. Ozymandias is not the hero in the story but the villian.

I'm curious: who do you think was the hero in this story?

Spoiler

Given that Ozymandias effectively stopped a nuclear war by exploding a Cthulhu-beast in the middle of New York City, everyone present except Rorschach agrees that going along with Ozymandias' actions is best. And Rorschach thinks the world is morally hollow--a playground with no rules--all he wants to do is present the truth at any cost. So, Dr. Manhattan kills him.

You could argue against Ozymandias by saying that he's actually making the world worse off in the long run--the cessation of global conflict is temporary and the human race will only be more violent afterwards--but we don't need to go full blown Ozymandias in every day life; justifying his actions would require a vast amount of data (though, perhaps the type of data that a super-intelligent and wealthy humanitarian might have).

I'm not advocating that anyone cause a massive incident in downtown New York to unite humanity (Silver Surfer style, which really didn't benefit humanity much at all), but if I had very very strong reasons to believe that there was about to be a nuclear war, then I very well would advocate for any method that would prevent such an eradication/perversion of human life (in reality a nuclear fallout would not be as fun as Fallout 1 or 2 and maybe only slightly more fun than Wasteland 2).

Murdering 1000 people for a low low chance of curing cancer? Lel no. If the chance had been higher, sure, 100 % worth.

It would equal some average joe telling me, that he had the cure for cancer.

One researcher having a 1/1000 chance of curing cancer is astronomically HIGH. If you think a 1/1000 chance for one researcher's actions to result in developing a cure for cancer is low, then I'm not sure how you believe that we haven't completely eradicated cancer from the face of the Earth yet. In any case, we'll obviously never have such accurate numbers when we're making decisions. It's just an example to highlight a moral principle. To point out that the world isn't 0's and 1's, and that if you treat it like it is--in the extreme--you'll end up sitting by while a nuclear fallout wipes out everyone you love, everyone you care about, and eliminates the possibility of caring about anyone new. Sausage might call Ozymandias a villain, but in the watchmen universe Ozymandias is the reason why people like Sausage can value the lives of children in burning buildings, why they can love and care about things, and so on.

 

[Kaivokz]

I am sure Hitler had a mathematical proof of the sacrifices Jews and others had to do so he can save the world. Poor Hitler, nobody understood his math

Hitler and Ozymandias may have both wanted to make the world a better place, but inferring that two things have similarities throughout because they share one feature is a poor reasoning. If you can only see the world broadly in two categories "Hitler" and "not-Hitler" then you are missing the entire point.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Dude, are you even for real or are you an elaborate troll?

Did you guys really completely miss out all the allusions to Nazism that go with his character? The way the parallel story about the capatain who builds his raft out of corpses mirrors Ozy? Hell, why do you think Moore named him Ozymandias in the first place? Its quite frankly a bit frightening how people can read this shit and come up with the conclusion he is the hero of the story.

I am not going to argue this nonsense anymore.

 

[ArchAngel]

Hitler and Ozymandias may have both wanted to make the world a better place, but inferring that two things have similarities throughout because they share one feature is a poor reasoning. If you can only see the world broadly in two categories "Hitler" and "not-Hitler" then you are missing the entire point.

No I am not. Only difference is that Ozy logic was explained and shown to readers while Hitler was not. Ozy succeeded in his plan, Hitler didn't. Maybe the world would be better now if he did, who knows..

Actually using a imaginary story with nothing from real life for any point is beyond stupid.

 

[Kaivokz]

Dude, are you even for real or are you an elaborate troll?

Did you guys really completely miss out all the allusions to Nazism that go with his character? The way the parallel story about the capatain who builds his raft out of corpses mirrors Ozy? Hell, why do you think Moore named him Ozymandias in the first place? Its quite frankly a bit frightening how people can read this shit and come up with the conclusion he is the hero of the story.

I am not going to argue this nonsense anymore.

Ozymandias is the Greek name for Ramesses II (initially Veidt was infatuated by Alexander the Great, but during his time in Egypt became infatuated with Ramesses II - which is where Ozy took his name from) and if you think about it there is actually an interesting dis-analogy between Ramesses II and Ozymandias. Ramesses II became a legend like he wanted, but Egypt still fell within the next couple centuries. In contrast, Ozymandias didn't become a legend (or at least it is left open in the story whether he did or not) and he never wanted to be. Whether or not humanity still fell within the next couple centuries is unknown. Anyway, I never claimed he was a hero--I don't care who is labelled a hero and who a villain, those are matters that other people can worry about--I'm concerned with what is right, what is good, and how a rational person can best contribute to the flourishing of the human race.

No I am not. Only difference is that Ozy logic was explained and shown to readers while Hitler was not. Ozy succeeded in his plan, Hitler didn't. Maybe the world would be better now if he did, who knows..

Actually using a imaginary story with nothing from real life for any point is beyond stupid.

I missed the part where the threat of nuclear war and the loss of human life didn't exist in real life.

 

[Wizfall]

Could not resist and finally played this game for the first time (i won't get far though as i'm still looking for the "final" version).
The game is way above my expectation and i find it awesome.
The quest design and especially the writing is very good, no info dump despite the"lot" of text, everything is interesting (unlike PoE who bores me greatly) to read so far.
Combat is enjoyable and i even like the graphics.
Only con is the annoying camera.

They got the old school vibe perfectly IMHO, I'm really into it.
Too soon to tell if W2 will became a classic for me as i'm really just at the beginning but could very be.
Very impressed, gratz sea and Brother None.

 

[DosBuster]

Wait, are you guys even arguing about wasteland 2 anymore? The fuck does Ozymandias have to do with pod people?