Almost a month ago, Vonya wrote a post, that became legendary. Many people posted agreement and support. Many in their own posts linked it as something great and fundamental.I did not post, did not link, but not because I did not care. I thought that the post was created in an emotional moment of an otherwise great person and this is not a moment for arguments. Almost a month passed, so here comes the goblin opinion.
Be warned: goblin philosophy can be easily found offensive or evil to many people. So read these posts only if you are open to controversial ideas. BEWARE! This post will be much more "evil", than any previous. If you come here just to get tips on making WoW money, pick a post from the list on the top, and DON'T bother reading on!
Vonya wrote: "I’m human. Me. I’m not pixels, I’m not a draenei priest, I’m a person, and I want all of you to know that every single one of your comments affects me in some way.
Those (very very few) of you who watch my blog and are asshats and trolls, I hope you stop and think about the comments you leave. Not just here, but on every single website you visit. Every blog, every forum. Those are REAL people that you’re affecting, insulting. And no, I will not be ashamed of the fact that they bother me. No, I do not think you should only blog if you have rhino-like hide enough to withstand the barbs.
Bloggers are people, and so few of us make enough money at this to even cover the cost of hosting. We’re not in this to become rich and famous. Why should we pretend that we don’t care when you rattle our cages, that it doesn’t affect us because we’re somehow less human just because we blog?"
There are two reason why it is really wrong according to the goblin philosophy. For today, one is enough. It reiterates a statement, and the writer deeply emotionally align herself with this statement that can be defined like this:
"we, the human beings has special rights, we deserve that everyone threat us nicely, respecting our rights, and we have these rights just because we were born humans".
Sounds really nice, and the believers of these ideas believe that these ideas could turn the world into a place of harmony, peace and understanding.
Apparently, the world (both in WoW and in real life) is not a place of harmony, peace and understanding. Contrary, both worlds are ravaged by wars. The big difference is that in the real world, the consequence is much more than a corpserun and 10% repair bill.
The followers of these ideas would say that the wars exists because many people don't believe their ideas. The goblin philosophy says: these wars exists because of this (and similar) ideas.
Remember your own thoughts when you engaged PvP combat in a BG or raiding an enemy capital? What were your reasons of killing that other character? Did you even felt it needs an explanation? Or was it obvious like breathing? After all, they were just filthy greenskinned monsters you killed, not humans.
The members of the other factions are usually referred as inferior or evil beings. I've read horde-sided WoW fansites where the gnomes are subject of comments that are no less than rampart racist hatred (most probably because they are little = inferior).
This is the same in the real world. The members of other countries, religions or cultures are evil, inferior, dumb, live in darkness and bent on world domination. And of course we have to stop them in defending humanity itself. After all we are humans and they are less than that.
The followers of the goblin way are not nice people according to this idea. Instead of helping our fellow men, we take advantage of them. We take their money in the AH, we /ignore them when they beg for 1G, we tell "go to a lower level land/quest/instance", when they ask for help in questing or instance boosting. We don't see our fellow men as brothers and sisters, but as competitors.
And above all, we refuse to make sacrifices for the "greater good of the group". We leave the not progressing guilds, we don't farm for the guildbank, don't run lower instances to gear them up, we don't rush to avenge them if they got ganked. Most of the "good people" think that if there would be a real war in the real world, the goblin minded people would desert the army and run away, saving their own life abandoning their fellows. And we would! And if everyone would desert, there would be no one left on the battlefield than the leaders who started it all. That would be the day!
The idea that "we" deserve better threatment than "them" is the basis of all wars and hatred. A draenei priest made of pixels deserve no less than a "real human". If the same blog would be written by an artificial intelligence represented by a draenei avatar, would the very same posts would be less valid?
While the idea of seeing everyone as part of "us" is really nice, it's simply impossible. Our ancestors are savages and monkeys who lived in small, family based groups for several hundred thousand years. Our brain evolved into something that see the people around us, similar to us as "us", and see the others as "them". As long as there is "us", there will be "them".
The goblin way is that there is no "us". No help to anyone, giving nothing for free. The other one has to pay market price for everything. If he underperforms, we kick him from the raid, if most underperforms, we leave the raid. Since there is no "us", there is no "them" either. We gladly trade in the common AH, letting the other faction have resources for a price.
I do go to battlegrounds for my personal end: PvP gear. But I go for the map objective. I don't kill anyone who is not messing with my flags/bases. On Arathi Basin I often have almost-zero damage done, 10+ flag capture/defend. In EoS I often have literally zero damage if no enemy comes close to the base I'm holding. I get the big honor and the marks for the objective, not for killing the opponents.
Dear reader! You may live in a different country with a different leadership and culture than me. It is possible that some politican came up with the idea of making a war between our countries. If this will happen, I will hide/emigrate instead of killing you, no matter how much my countrymen claim it's the right thing to do. Will you try to kill me?
"we, the human beings has special rights, we deserve that everyone threat us nicely, respecting our rights, and we have these rights just because we were born humans".
Sounds really nice, and the believers of these ideas believe that these ideas could turn the world into a place of harmony, peace and understanding.
Apparently, the world (both in WoW and in real life) is not a place of harmony, peace and understanding. Contrary, both worlds are ravaged by wars. The big difference is that in the real world, the consequence is much more than a corpserun and 10% repair bill.
The followers of these ideas would say that the wars exists because many people don't believe their ideas. The goblin philosophy says: these wars exists because of this (and similar) ideas.
Remember your own thoughts when you engaged PvP combat in a BG or raiding an enemy capital? What were your reasons of killing that other character? Did you even felt it needs an explanation? Or was it obvious like breathing? After all, they were just filthy greenskinned monsters you killed, not humans.
The members of the other factions are usually referred as inferior or evil beings. I've read horde-sided WoW fansites where the gnomes are subject of comments that are no less than rampart racist hatred (most probably because they are little = inferior).
This is the same in the real world. The members of other countries, religions or cultures are evil, inferior, dumb, live in darkness and bent on world domination. And of course we have to stop them in defending humanity itself. After all we are humans and they are less than that.
The followers of the goblin way are not nice people according to this idea. Instead of helping our fellow men, we take advantage of them. We take their money in the AH, we /ignore them when they beg for 1G, we tell "go to a lower level land/quest/instance", when they ask for help in questing or instance boosting. We don't see our fellow men as brothers and sisters, but as competitors.
And above all, we refuse to make sacrifices for the "greater good of the group". We leave the not progressing guilds, we don't farm for the guildbank, don't run lower instances to gear them up, we don't rush to avenge them if they got ganked. Most of the "good people" think that if there would be a real war in the real world, the goblin minded people would desert the army and run away, saving their own life abandoning their fellows. And we would! And if everyone would desert, there would be no one left on the battlefield than the leaders who started it all. That would be the day!
The idea that "we" deserve better threatment than "them" is the basis of all wars and hatred. A draenei priest made of pixels deserve no less than a "real human". If the same blog would be written by an artificial intelligence represented by a draenei avatar, would the very same posts would be less valid?
While the idea of seeing everyone as part of "us" is really nice, it's simply impossible. Our ancestors are savages and monkeys who lived in small, family based groups for several hundred thousand years. Our brain evolved into something that see the people around us, similar to us as "us", and see the others as "them". As long as there is "us", there will be "them".
The goblin way is that there is no "us". No help to anyone, giving nothing for free. The other one has to pay market price for everything. If he underperforms, we kick him from the raid, if most underperforms, we leave the raid. Since there is no "us", there is no "them" either. We gladly trade in the common AH, letting the other faction have resources for a price.
I do go to battlegrounds for my personal end: PvP gear. But I go for the map objective. I don't kill anyone who is not messing with my flags/bases. On Arathi Basin I often have almost-zero damage done, 10+ flag capture/defend. In EoS I often have literally zero damage if no enemy comes close to the base I'm holding. I get the big honor and the marks for the objective, not for killing the opponents.
Dear reader! You may live in a different country with a different leadership and culture than me. It is possible that some politican came up with the idea of making a war between our countries. If this will happen, I will hide/emigrate instead of killing you, no matter how much my countrymen claim it's the right thing to do. Will you try to kill me?
2 comments:
I've observed this in WOW automatically hating the opposing faction because they appeared different I could not help but think that this is the same thing that goes on in the real world, not knowing other cultures but automatically forming inaccurate opinions about them. :-)
In the pvp realm, when I'm questing I don't attack unless they attack first then it's defending myself. I hate a corpse runs other than that I leave them alone. In many ways we are similar just support a different faction.
Regardless of the faction, you'll find some that engage in racist comments I guess in their mind it's just a game but to me it's no different from the inaccurate labels we see placed on a variety of groups in the real world.
Regarding world PvP (raids on faction leaders, etc.) - I like conflict. Part of that is because of the reduced consequences - if all 'war' costs me are repair bills and corpse runs, who cares? I doubt I'd like it as much if it cost me lost friends, limbs, and lifespan.
There's probably some ape-subroutine reason why I enjoy it (asserting dominance or something), but the fact that my pleasure is rooted in some primitive directive doesn't make it any less enjoyable. So I buy into the whole 'the other faction is evil and stupid' nonsense, not because I really *believe* it, but because it gives me the excuse I need to indulge in a bit of violent conflict.
Is this a bad thing? If so, why?
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