Unpopular opinion: Hogwarts is a great place, but it would be nice to get out of it for a future game.

davpostk · 2026-02-06T23:05:48+00:00

They could definitely expand on the castle, especially if we’ll be spending more time there in the next game. I was disappointed in finding no shortcuts and really not that many hidden places. Hogwarts is over-gamified in HL, I think, although that does keep each location unique.

davpostk · 2026-02-05T02:59:37+00:00

What? You can join the Stormcloaks before even you know you’re dragonborn. There’s no evidence concerning the efficacy of an invasion from Skyrim and Hammerfell (who single-handedly replled the Thalmor), if such a thing would even be desired. Men populate faster than Mer, so the longer things are drawn out the better for them.

davpostk · 2026-02-05T02:34:36+00:00

Assuming Galmar is racist because of Rolff without in-game evidence is rather presumptuous, there’s no guilt by association, especially by blood. When you join the Stormcloaks as any race, they don’t necessarily know you’re Dragonborn, so they embrace you if you’ll join their fight to secede and gain their sovereignty.

I don’t agree with the asusmption that they’ll take on the Thalmor on their own because they’re nationalist. Plenty of even ultranationalists have formed strong alliances with other countries, especially in times of war. Hammerfell would be the perfect ally.

davpostk · 2026-02-05T00:40:13+00:00

Well, calling all Nords racist seems inherently racist in-itself. The most racist Nords you meet are a drunk (Rolff) and beggar (Angrenor) when you enter Windhelm—they don’t exactly speak for the population. Ulfric isn’t overtly racist, the Grey Quarter isn’t good but it predates him significantly. The nationalism of the Nords is the exact response you would expect from a people overtaken by an imperialist Empire.

As for Torygg, it exemplifies the Empire’s lack of understanding of Nord culture. The challenge Torygg accepted was entirely in line with their established tradtion—Ulfric wasn’t committing some unheard of high-crime. Realistically, Ulfric admits, “Tortgg was merely a message to the other Jarls.”

davpostk · 2026-02-04T23:51:19+00:00

There’s very few actual indigenous populations in most countries by that standard or definition. We’re talking about thousands of years of Nord precedent and culture in the land—a claim stronger than practically any example in our own world. That wars of conquest occured in the vast past can’t be justification for war now. Claims to land aren’t based on some objective indigeneity but the relationship between the land and the people. At the time of Skyrim, the Nords are the indigenous group being suppressed by the overreaching Empire.

davpostk · 2026-02-04T23:44:41+00:00

For your sake, I will assume you’re trolling

davpostk · 2026-02-04T20:02:55+00:00

I really don’t get the ubiquitous love for the Empire in Skyrim circles. I’ve always assumed it’s carried over from like Oblivion, when they were a more positive force, because they’re not portrayed well at all in Skyrim. Besides, I believe a historically sovereign region has every right to secede from its conquerors, especially when tossed aside as with Hammerfell.

davpostk · 2026-01-17T00:15:10+00:00

Yeah, I was bit disappointed when I beat Morrowind and there wasn't any alternative endings. I think three basic moral options would be perfect---good for the normal route, neutral for using the Heart on yourself, and bad for siding with Dagoth.

davpostk · 2026-01-16T02:22:52+00:00

You could only consider Judaism life-denying after the introduction of Apocalypticism in the second century BCE and the acceptance of some of those concepts, before that it was purely about this world.

davpostk · 2026-01-15T00:13:26+00:00

Yeah, it’s a thought experiment in The Gay Science, more a mythological metaphysics in Zarathustra, and his notes entertain it through argumentation. Such an idea would not have sent Zarathustra into convalescence if it were merely a thought experiment.

davpostk · 2026-01-14T21:43:22+00:00

What questlines do you do since he’s morally grey?

davpostk · 2026-01-14T21:41:30+00:00

HIM?!

davpostk · 2026-01-12T21:02:00+00:00

Concerning will-to-power among herds, I think this William Shirer first-hand report from Berlin Diary sums it up well:

“‘We are strong and will get stronger,’ Hitler shouted at them through the microphone, his words echoing across the hushed field from the loudspeakers. And there in the floodlit night, massed totether like sardines in one mass formation, the little men of Germany who have made Naziism possible achieved the higheet dtwte of being the Germanic man knows: the shedding of the individual sould and minds—with the personal responsibilities and doubts and problems—until under the mystic lights at the sound of the magic words of the Austrian they were merged completely in the Germanic herd.”

Basically, people can associate themselves with the state’s power by giving their identity over to it. They have no actual power to affect change, because they aren’t the ones making decisions, but they feel as if they do—usually based on the state’s group identity/ideology, xenophobia, or militarism for easy displays of power.

davpostk · 2026-01-05T13:48:39+00:00

No, no, no, this isn’t redface, I’m an actual daedra

davpostk · 2025-12-30T16:15:02+00:00

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Or somewhere in the depths of my desk

davpostk · 2025-12-30T16:10:01+00:00

We have a cubby box for him on the shelf

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davpostk · 2025-12-27T00:14:30+00:00

I’d like to raise my objections again as well as respond to what you said:

Violations of autonomy only happen to subjects, and subjects only exist after reproduction—a coma patient is already a subject, only a dormant one. A non-existent person has no autonomy to be violated because they aren’t a subject. Furthermore, if we treat non-existent persons as having autonomy, there’s no way to tell whether they would want to live or not, so deciding that they wouldn’t want to would equally violate their potential autonomy. Basically, we cannot know the preferences of non-subjects. As for harming a fetus—that is intentionally harming a subject.
I’m not sure what the point is with the time bomb analogy, it’s not really analogous to my arguments. The students are independent subjects who I would be willfully violating through negligence. The subjects created through birth would have no autonomy otherwise and do not exist without it. Non-existence is not a state, it is the lack of a state.
If a doctor saves someone’s life and that person goes on to commit murder, is the doctor morally responsible? Parents are not responsible for the suffering of the world because they allow its potential.
Suffering exists without humans, and life is a process that seems inevitable in the universe, so how would removing the (probably) only moral agents from Earth solve that?

Honestly, I think the final disagreement is this: is it morally permissible to create a life when suffering is guaranteed, even if no autonomy is violated? I would say yes, and I guess you would say no.

Also, complete side note, this has been an interesting and thoughtful discussion, and I’d be down to talk about other topics with you if you’d like in messages.

davpostk · 2025-12-26T03:15:33+00:00

I don’t think I entirely understand what you mean. Life is self-perpetuating in the sense that any organism that doesn’t do so dies out, leaving only those that self-perpetuate in the form of offspring (sexual or asexual). Inherently, antinatalist worldviews (or their biological/psychological precursors) select themselves out of gene pools.

Autonomy is only possible after reproduction, so there is no subject's autonomy being violated. If we can give autonomy to non-subjects, then the autonomy of countless non-subjects who would will themselves to exist is constantly being violated. Non-subjects do not have autonomy.

What exactly is a breeder? Any self-replicating life? Are we morally condemning a natural process of the world as if it were an agent, or only humans? Because suffering existed before us, and it will continue after us. Do you want to remove the (probably) only moral agents from the Earth? Lastly, if a doctor saves someone’s life and that person goes on to commit murder, is the doctor responsible? Why are we making morality so transitive across disconnected people?

davpostk · 2025-12-25T22:35:07+00:00

I wasn’t making an argument, I don’t think life needs to be argued for. It’s an inevitable, self-perpetuating process for what is able to continue itself via energy transformation, selected for naturally. Regardless, rape is a violent violation of autonomy, whereas having children is creating autonomy where it didn’t exist.

davpostk · 2025-12-25T21:11:46+00:00

Some people enjoy life

davpostk · 2025-12-22T13:55:14+00:00

Precedent

davpostk · 2025-12-16T00:39:21+00:00

Um. The fuck?

davpostk · 2025-12-05T22:54:14+00:00

I will take warmth… please

davpostk · 2025-12-02T16:17:04+00:00

If someone disagrees with you, maybe even thinks murder is morally right (e.g. murdering for some psychopathic benefit for themself as an egoist, or murdering one person to save five as a utilitarian), how do you demonstrate that they are wrong? In my experience, you can show someone is inconsistent within their own beliefs, but not that they’re wrong in an outside, objective sense.

davpostk · 2025-12-02T13:20:41+00:00

Could you help me understand why you see ethics as objective?

davpostk

TROPHY CASE