Free Will

[FTJoshua]

Maybe this belongs in the non-game thread, but since this is taking place in a campaign, thought I'd throw it out there. Any you familiar with Angel season 4 will recognize the trappings.

 

Our hero's old nemesis forced the hero to "rescue" a powerful mentalist from a mutant prison. Hero does so to save his wife's life. So far so good. Next day, the world is at total peace. Mutants and humans are walking the streets together (our campaign setting is one in which mutants are being actively hunted and hated by non-mutants). Everybody's happy! This is, of course, the result of the mentalist. (Some of you may remember my last post asking about expanding a power to global proportions...)

 

Now, our hero knows what's going on, and he's not happy about it, but he's also being affected by this Happiness Effect. His nemesis is now President (*cough*rippedofffromsupermancomic*cough*), but appears to be sincere in his desire for a world in which violence has been eradicated.

 

Our hero is about to be asked to dispose of the few remaining mutants who are immune to the mentalist's effects. And of course he's all bent out of shape about "free will" blah blah blah...

 

So. If you were the hero in question, under no mentalist control (your enemy has halted the mental attack for the time being), and without the ability to physically stop your enemy ('cause you've temporarily lost your powers...long story)...what would you say the importance of free will is? Is it not worth 20 or so lives to guarantee peace on earth? The nemesis argues that people do still have free will under this system, just the absence of desire to harm. What's wrong with that? Furthermore, the nemesis has no intention of creating a New World Order; countries will remain as they are, but under leaders who are suddenly quite benevolent. Science can focus solely on the betterment of mankind/mutantkind (a'la Star Trek). How can this be wrong?

 

Your (or your PC's) final answer?

 

Of course, I am presupposing all responses will be in the "Free will is essential" vein. Feel free to take the opposite tack, in or out of character, and argue why this new system is perfectly valid and makes sense.

Thanks!

[JmOz]

Re: Free Will

 

Without freewill we are all just puppets, the problem with any society based off of the abilities of one man, be they charismatic or supernatural is that when that one man disapears the society will fall, and not just to the level prior to his taking control, but there is a backlash effect from it. This in the long run causes more harm than any good it may create

 

Further more a world with out crime/war/murder will have overpopulation problems faster than one that does not

 

and most importantly, you are preventing true enlightenment, we can not grow past our pettinesses if you have taken them away

[David Johnston]

Re: Free Will

 

The first thought which comes to mind is that "non-violent" is by no means the same thing as "benevolent". Tyrants would continue to tyrannise even if now they have to have their nonviolent guards nonviolently carry annoying people to a cell where they will be locked in and just not fed. Passive aggression is a dangerous weapon in my hands.

[transmetahuman]

Re: Free Will

 

I'm wondering if anyone's response would change if the mentalist's power was described as "Emotional influence: generating a tendency for good will towards all" rather than "control".

[OddHat]

Re: Free Will

 

I agree pretty strongly with Jim Oz's first point. Eventually the Dear Leader will die, one way or another, and the world he has built will fall to pieces. Worse, since he's controlling every person on Earth, all of their lives will be shown as lies. People who've grown up under Dear Leader will never learn how to deal with anger, people who spend a few decades under him will forget. Society will desolve into chaos, and the human toll of his inevitable fall will be in the billions.

 

Even a brief world wide use of mind control would have fairly hideous consequences, though as the GM you're free to take the story your own way.

[OddHat]

Re: Free Will

 

I'm wondering if anyone's response would change if the mentalist's power was described as "Emotional influence: generating a tendency for good will towards all" rather than "control".

 

Nope. Same problem. Sooner or later, even if he's "immortal", something will take him out of the picture, at which point people will have to deal with being human again, after having lived for years without developing coping skills.

[jkwleisemann]

Re: Free Will

 

Well, let's say he has made everyone benevolent.

 

And let's say that he isn't interested in making himself President of Earth.

 

How long will that last, point one?

 

Second, what's going to happen when he/his pet mentalist kick the bucket and are no longer in power?

 

The fact that he responds to the situation by suggesting the violent demise of those who can resist it suggests that there is no way you could trust the situation at all. After ensuring one is in a location he can't shoot you in, one turns him down flat, hopefully after having designed one's tinfoil hat properly.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: Free Will

 

.what would you say the importance of free will is? Is it not worth 20 or so lives to guarantee peace on earth?

 

I'll answer by way of my characters - they would fight to the death to stop what is going on. Free will is the most important thing in existence (and also a dang good song by Rush )

[AliceTheOwl]

Re: Free Will

 

The thing is, what defines a person is how he reacts to conflict. We're forged in the fires of conflict, and all that. Without any conflict or reason to question the world, we have no reason to improve ourselves.

 

Mild Serenity spoiler below . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm just thinking of Miranda, the whole planet that lies down to go to sleep because the drug put in their air to keep them calm and quiet works TOO well. They don't bother doing ANYTHING anymore, because they're happy the way they are.

 

Your mentalist could easily be setting up a similar scenario.

[Yansuf]

Re: Free Will

 

The thing is' date=' what defines a person is how he reacts to conflict. We're forged in the fires of conflict, and all that. Without any conflict or reason to question the world, we have no reason to improve ourselves. quote']

 

Not to mention what if some alien culture, that is neither non-violent or benevolent, comes to call?

 

Robert Heinlein said something on the order of: "Any people (society) that decides it "ain't gonna study war no more" will very soon be displaced, destroyed or enslaved by a people that does."

That is not an exact quote, but it is as close as I can do from memory.

[Kabluey]

Re: Free Will

 

I'm wondering if anyone's response would change if the mentalist's power was described as "Emotional influence: generating a tendency for good will towards all" rather than "control".

Nope. Same problem. Sooner or later, even if he's "immortal", something will take him out of the picture, at which point people will have to deal with being human again, after having lived for years without developing coping skills.

 

Really? Because it occurs to me that this might very well be a way to build a charistmatic character like Ghandi or Martin Luther King - any individual who seems to have an extraordinary ability to influence the opinions and actions of another.

[Guest daeudi_454]

Re: Free Will

 

I did...

I mean Doom did this once already- using the Purple Man. (see: Emperor Doom).

 

Even he found no satisfaction in the world being that way.

 

The Avengers were conflicted about changing things back, and even once freed from the power-

there were a couple who wanted to leave Doom in charge (can't remember who, been a while.)

 

Of course, the world was freed from the oppressive regime of peace-

but, more because Doom wanted it so than any great heroics of the Avengers.

[OddHat]

Re: Free Will

 

Really? Because it occurs to me that this might very well be a way to build a charistmatic character like Ghandi or Martin Luther King - any individual who seems to have an extraordinary ability to influence the opinions and actions of another.

 

You do that with a high PRE plus appropriate skill choices. Even then, cults of personality lead to trouble after the charismatic leader is gone.

[Kabluey]

Re: Free Will

 

You do that with a high PRE plus appropriate skill choices. Even then' date=' cults of personality lead to trouble after the charismatic leader is gone.[/quote']

 

You can do it with a high PRE, but I think a lower-dice Mind Control (i.e., "influence" rather than "control") is also a perfectly valid way to build it as well. In any case, game build issues aside, are you really suggesting that you'd be okay with it if it were permanent? Say I built it as a Transform (violent person -> non-violent person), then you'd have no objection?

 

I'm not meaning to pick on you, I just find the objection that it's only temporary to be a particularly weak one (and I realize you weren't the only one making this point - your comment just happened to cause me to want to respond), given that the obvious rebuttal is exactly what I said: Make it permanent.

 

That doesn't really speak to the larger point, of course.

[OddHat]

Re: Free Will

 

You can do it with a high PRE' date=' but I think a lower-dice Mind Control (i.e., "influence" rather than "control") is also a perfectly valid way to build it as well.[/quote']

 

It's legal, but awkward. You need to stack advantages and limits to simulate an effect that's easy to represent directly with skills. However, tastes be tastes.

 

In any case, game build issues aside, are you really suggesting that you'd be okay with it if it were permanent?

 

No. I'm stating that the fact it's not permanent is the most glaringly obvious reason it's a bad idea.

 

Say I built it as a Transform (violent person -> non-violent person), then you'd have no objection?

You'd need to have the transform cover every generation forever, and in a comic book universe you'd have the problem of aliens and extra dimensional entities who hadn't been covered. You'd also have to hope that those who were immune didn't out breed those who weren't.

 

I'm not meaning to pick on you, I just find the objection that it's only temporary to be a particularly weak one

 

You're entitled to your opinion. I don't agree.

 

(and I realize you weren't the only one making this point - your comment just happened to cause me to want to respond), given that the obvious rebuttal is exactly what I said: Make it permanent.

 

Which solves the most obvious problem, but leaves the rest of the flaws in this plan un-touched: corrupt actions taken by the Dear Leader and his cronies, social and mental health risks involved in changing the way that human brains function, the moral and ethical issue, etc.

 

That doesn't really speak to the larger point, of course.

 

Yes.

[MilkmanDan]

Re: Free Will

 

Oh Brave New World that hath such people in it!

 

Happiness is nothing without sadness. In this scenario, people aren't actually "happy" in any sense of the word. They're just basically living in a walking coma. Whether the soma is in pill form of via mental waves, the entire world being happy would be a stunningly bad thing.

 

First thing that should be done is to drop a truck on that mentalist. The second thing should be to make everybody read Brave New World for a view of what this "utopia" would be like.

[Kevin Schultz]

Re: Free Will

 

One of the issues that is raised by this is the definition of "better for everyone"; ie, the theory that the lives the people are living are better because they aren't fighting anymore. However, one could argue that this is a disconnect, because the people they were don't exist any more. Essentially, in order to achive this goal, the mentalist has to (effectively) kill everyone telepathically and leave drones in their place.

 

Also, it seems that he is being inconsistant in his application. If it's better for everyone, then he ought to have done it to himself. But if he does it to himself, then he'd probably be horrified at what he did (stole something, in this case free will, from the rest of the population), and therefore undo it. Otherwise, you'd have to argue that someone who was truly benevolent would take away the core aspect of someone's identity, effectively killing that person and leaving someone else in their stead.

 

EDIT - another thought - the assumption here is that anyone currently under the effect of the mentalist wouldn't try to undo it. I'd disagree, for reasons stated above. If I was truly benevolent, but realized that my existence hinged on someone else (the person I used to be) being mentally imprisoned, then I'd do whatever was in my power to undo that effect, and thus freeing my previous self from bondage. The fact that the person-I-am would die is not ultimatly enough to prevent me from doing so; I am benevolent, and therefore I sacrifice my life for the other.

[shaunclinton]

Re: Free Will

 

Anyone who is anyone would oppose such a move with every fiber of their being.

 

The one fundamental thing that virtually everyone dislikes is being told what to do. Imagine that multiplied up to the whole world? Sure some people will convert to a cause, but the vast majority don't like other people interfering with our free will.

 

Take a real world pseudo-example - ID Cards. Why do a great number of citizens in countries (such as the UK) without ID cards oppose their introduction? They would not hinder law abiding people and could be useful for combating terrorism, fraud, illegal immigration and a wide variety of problems. Even if the government made them free a lot of people will still oppose it in spite of the fact that it should make them safer. The reasons they will give are many and varied but fundamentally they don't like being told what to do and having tabs kept on them.

 

Mind control to render a population 'happy' or 'non-violent' is a violation a hundred times worse. So far the debate has been about these two states so I'll lump in all my points for both one after the other:

 

So you're stuck in a crappy relationship, your job sucks and your parents die in a car crash - but you feel happy through it all? What happens to all that negative emotion? Even worse, if you don't feel it vast swathes of our society changes over night. Do people need to grieve? Do people break up? What if they do? No-one feels bad about it! If no-one feels negatively about their situation where does the desire to change it come from? Why do heroin addicts sit around disgusting flea-pits all day - because they can induce happiness there, do these new happy people care about their surroundings? Why work? I used to work to get the money to do the things that make me happy but now I'm happy all day so why bother!

 

Non-violence - how far does this go? Can you kill animals for food? You fall in the Ocean and have to thrash violently to swim to shore - can you risk damaging a passing fish? What about the fight or flight response? What happens when the adrenaline rushes? Is it the end of passion in competitive sports? What happens to drive? You can kiss good-bye to millions of jobs as armies, police, etc. become surplus to requirements or jobs that a new non-violent population don't want. Can you kick your car if it breaks down? What if someone with this non-violence blanket over them commits a violent act such as causing a car crash? Does their mind snap? What about diseased people or mentally ill people, can they be violent - how does society deal with them?

 

Both routes lead to the complete alteration of our society. Also, nothing is ever 100% effective - there would be people who could resist, or there would come to be people who could resist. What happens then? Nobody who sees this going on around them would sit back and accept it.

 

I don't think there is a character in all HERO-dom worthy of the title 'hero' who would accept it.

 

I liked the way Superman put it back in JLA #4 - after some chat about what level of superhuman interference in society is acceptable he's asked something along the lines of 'Why do [humans] need us at all?'

 

"To catch them if they fall."

[Kabluey]

Re: Free Will

 

No. I'm stating that the fact it's not permanent is the most glaringly obvious reason it's a bad idea.

 

You'd need to have the transform cover every generation forever, and in a comic book universe you'd have the problem of aliens and extra dimensional entities who hadn't been covered. You'd also have to hope that those who were immune didn't out breed those who weren't.

 

I think the problem here is that it relies on a specific build of the power, which we haven't seen because the OP didn't provide it. And in any case I don't really think it's relevant to the discussion. The question wasn't, "How to build the power," but rather, "How would you react to this circumstance"? For all your character would know, it might actually do all that.

 

Which solves the most obvious problem' date=' but leaves the rest of the flaws in this plan un-touched: corrupt actions taken by the Dear Leader and his cronies, social and mental health risks involved in changing the way that human brains function, the moral and ethical issue, etc. [/quote']

 

I agree, but I wasn't touching on any of those issues. Just the permanency issue.

 

For my own part, I'm ambivalent about the issue. I guess it depends on the exact effect. If we're talking about an artificial euphoria, then I would certainly be opposed to it. But if we're talking about something less intrusive, say, merely compelling people to find non-violent resolutions in situations where they might otherwise resort to violence - I'd have a mucher harder time mustering up opposition. For whatever reason, when I read the OP, I assumed it was the latter, but upon rereading it, I could see the former being the case as well.

[FTJoshua]

Re: Free Will

 

For the sake of brevity in the OP, I didn't include a lot of details, particularly the game mechanics as our campaign rests heavily on the role play and very little on the mechanics (at least if you're the GM; PCs are bound hard and fast by the rules for the most part).

 

Great arguments, one and all, and I appreciate them. Now let me muck it up some more:

 

Is your PC/Hero prepared to kill the mentalist responsible for this global mind game? Why or why not?

 

And as our Nemesis will point out (bearing in mind the campaign setting which is far more malevelont to mutants than the cinematic X-men universe, for example), shutting the mental power off cold leaves billions of humans and millions of mutants staring at each other over cups of latte at Starbucks. Warring countries, whose soldiers are at the moment enjoying a game of soccer, suddenly lose that drive to not kill one another, and now they're right next to one another. The mind game is already in place, peace reigns - what about the fallout of shutting off that mind game cold? How many people will die as a result? Obviously it's not the hero's fault this all happened (well, except for handing the mentalist over to his enemy in the first place, not knowing what the enemy's plans were), but how much responsibility does he bear for the deaths that will ensue if the power is shut off?

[Lamrok]

Re: Free Will

 

I think my character would support the happy field. He'd use his powers to construct a backup for the mentallist, to make sure he couldn't easily be taken out.

 

I'd make up some mumbo jumbo about happiness being the next evolutionary step for mankind and this being the next logical step in the progression of humanity and justify it with my character's huge INT stat, subtly pointing out that things that are right often seem wrong unless you can bring 150+ int to bear on the problem. Sometimes the best way to portray a character with s super high intelligence to to declare things that are intuitively wrong.

 

We'd have a spirited discussion about it around the table, and various NPCs would show up to try to sway opinion on the matter. It would be a fun role-playing exercise that might end up going either way, but arguing on the side of happy would definitely be more fun than arguing on the side of "same ole thing" free will.

 

There just seems to be more interesting plot development opportunities in supporting it than opposing it.

[TheRavenIs]

Re: Free Will

 

Easy for all my C's, even the ones that wouldn't kill. The mentalist dies...peroid.

[Guest daeudi_454]

Re: Free Will

 

ok, in character:

Firedrake: Assuming the power wouldn't work on a dragon, he would be all for it. No more noise of war, no more destruction of the planet.

Quantum Cat: Assuming the power did not work on actual ghosts, the living PC would be able to relax- no more ghosts being made. The ghosts, being the PC, would kill the mentalist without hesitation.

Ion: the power would probably nullify his positive/negative split. merged- he would definitely NOT kill the mentalist.

The PC: would convince the mentalist to control everyone to destroy all weapons they could find, in a safe manner- swords to plowshares.

Then he would kill the mentalist.

[Certified]

Re: Free Will

 

First 2 paragraphs about books then my thoughts on the scenario at hand if anyone is still reading.

This brings to mind a couple of things, fist is God Emperor of Dune where Leto the II has had a good 3000 to subvert everyone to in the universe to his will, with only a few factions of resistance, notably one being from his sister’s bloodline. Her grief? Lack of control; the people have what they need but have nothing to strive for and suffer under restrictions limiting where they can go. For the most part people were free and only suffered from small restrictions but still the lack of control was too much for them to bear so they rallied against it. This is the stance most people seem to have taken and it appears straight forward enough.

The other perspective on this comes from the final pages of Watchmen. Where after a falsified event is set off it has a rallying effect over the world. The characters all know the truth but have to decide weather or not to reveal it. Forgive me those who have not read it, please read the graphic novel not the rest of this post. Here for the most part they decide instead it is better to allow this lie to continue to prevent the fallout from the world learning the truth.

In the scenario you’ve presented the hero must now choose to embrace the fallout or find some other possible solution. My question would be why do the players have to kill those who resist? If he were truly benevolent he should be able to find some form of compromise. Perhaps trying to convince them the same why he has persuaded the hero he has charged with killing them.

There is no shot term solution as I perceive it, or more correctly not without violence on a global scale. If I were a player in this scenario I believe I would work to some middle ground. Without killing those who could oppose the Mastermind. Perhaps using this moment of reprieve to developed real solutions, changing people’s perceptions of mutants while they are amiable to suggestion and seeking comprises between warring states that would hold long enough to prevent instant war upon his death. To put it another way the players would have one lifetime to change the minds and thoughts the world to prevent its inevitable destruction.

2 cents.

[McCoy]

Re: Free Will

 

Without freewill we are all just puppets' date=' the problem with any society based off of the abilities of one man, be they charismatic or supernatural is that when that one man disapears the society will fall, and not just to the level prior to his taking control, but there is a backlash effect from it. This in the long run causes more harm than any good it may create[/quote']

What he said.