DeLux
Player that used to be Lux
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2010
- Messages
- 9,313
Link to original post: [drupal=4184]The M2K Incident [/drupal]
Oh the irony of the title. I'm willing to bet that a bunch of people are going to view this simply because of the title. Obviously it features one of the greatest smashers. Naturally it's bound to get attention. People will see it and my blog will get lots of hits on SWF and generate all kinds of hype.
I don't care.
In case you haven't seen, I'm hosting a tournament to benefit the homeless community of my college town. I live in Lawrence, KS and I've been volunteering at a breakfast for the needy program called Jubilee Cafe for the better part of two years. As part of being TO for the tournament, it's been my responsibility to generate mass hype. In the thread, there was some ridiculous uproar as to why I won't put "M2K Confirmed" in the title to help generate more hype. The long answer short is, "I won't put it there because I don't have permission." (If you want to read for yourself what transpired, it starts at this post and continues on for a few pages: http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=12479443&postcount=253 )
But hey, it's a blog, so I'm going to go ahead and explain it a little further in depth. I DON'T want this blog post to turn into more arguing about it. You can save that for the real thread.
For those of you who haven't taken an ethics class, there are two competing ideologies in how the "right" decision is made. The first class is ends based. The second is means based.
The former focuses on the results of a decision as to whether it was the right one. In terms of video gaming competitively, this is easily the most predominant code of ethics. "Playing to win" is a code of ethics that based on the result of winning. Since this attitude is so engrained into our competitive mindset, I'm not surprised that people favor the ends based system. It does have its advantages, but it also has its issues as well.
Which leads me to the latter, and my personal selection for a moral compass. I am more concerned with how and why a decision is made over the decision itself. That's why I subscribe myself to the school of deontology. It essentially means that I believe in a code of ethics and will follow it to the ends of the earth. Even if the end result is sometimes detrimental, the code is what should be followed because it's what you believe to be right in your heart. As you can tell, outside the realm of playing to win in video game, I'm a real life scrub.
So since I state I believe in things, the next logical question would be, "What is your code?"
I have three categorical imperatives that I attempt to weigh against one another. I know this isn't true to the intended philosophy of deontology to have one categorical comperatives, but I personally don't believe in binaries of right and wrong, or binaries in general for that matter.
So if you can imagine a triangle it would look something like:
Reason - Faith
| /
Loyalty
I try to operate out of those three principles. There would be times when certain principles relate to each other. For example, Loyalty tempered by reason gives people their sense of duty, which is something I hold strongly to. Reason tempered by faith leads to hope. Loyalty combined with faith creates love. The three in consumate balance creates the ideal principled life.
There are times when I operate too much out of reason. Like perhaps I should value my loyalty to the organization I'm supporting and should do every thing I can possible to support the tournament. But then I temper it with reason and realize I have a duty to uphold my belief that another person should not be a means to an end without knowing consent.
Or sometimes in my relationships, I would get into this habit of always arguing out of reason no matter what the situation was. It took me time, but I realized that sometimes it's best to temper reason by arguing out of love in order to keep what's important.
This is the code I follow. When I deviate from it, bad things happen. When I don't keep it in balance, sometimes even worse things happen. But for the life of me, I don't think I'll be abandoning it just because the result of one decision is poor. It would take some really terrible things in order for me to change.
It's a matter of faith. It is easy to believe in an idea when it is working well. But often times it is even more important to believe in it when things are bad.
Keep Chasing It,
DeLux
PS: I got a promotion in the Smash Lab today. Now I'm partially in charge of the usergroup and admissions
I am FAMOUS
PPS: I won a $100 gift card today
PPPS: I removed M2K from the title in order to remove the perception I'm trying to deceive people, per mod request. Mostly because of the mod request given it wasn't an attempt to deceive anyone.
Oh the irony of the title. I'm willing to bet that a bunch of people are going to view this simply because of the title. Obviously it features one of the greatest smashers. Naturally it's bound to get attention. People will see it and my blog will get lots of hits on SWF and generate all kinds of hype.
I don't care.
In case you haven't seen, I'm hosting a tournament to benefit the homeless community of my college town. I live in Lawrence, KS and I've been volunteering at a breakfast for the needy program called Jubilee Cafe for the better part of two years. As part of being TO for the tournament, it's been my responsibility to generate mass hype. In the thread, there was some ridiculous uproar as to why I won't put "M2K Confirmed" in the title to help generate more hype. The long answer short is, "I won't put it there because I don't have permission." (If you want to read for yourself what transpired, it starts at this post and continues on for a few pages: http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=12479443&postcount=253 )
But hey, it's a blog, so I'm going to go ahead and explain it a little further in depth. I DON'T want this blog post to turn into more arguing about it. You can save that for the real thread.
For those of you who haven't taken an ethics class, there are two competing ideologies in how the "right" decision is made. The first class is ends based. The second is means based.
The former focuses on the results of a decision as to whether it was the right one. In terms of video gaming competitively, this is easily the most predominant code of ethics. "Playing to win" is a code of ethics that based on the result of winning. Since this attitude is so engrained into our competitive mindset, I'm not surprised that people favor the ends based system. It does have its advantages, but it also has its issues as well.
Which leads me to the latter, and my personal selection for a moral compass. I am more concerned with how and why a decision is made over the decision itself. That's why I subscribe myself to the school of deontology. It essentially means that I believe in a code of ethics and will follow it to the ends of the earth. Even if the end result is sometimes detrimental, the code is what should be followed because it's what you believe to be right in your heart. As you can tell, outside the realm of playing to win in video game, I'm a real life scrub.
So since I state I believe in things, the next logical question would be, "What is your code?"
I have three categorical imperatives that I attempt to weigh against one another. I know this isn't true to the intended philosophy of deontology to have one categorical comperatives, but I personally don't believe in binaries of right and wrong, or binaries in general for that matter.
So if you can imagine a triangle it would look something like:
Reason - Faith
| /
Loyalty
I try to operate out of those three principles. There would be times when certain principles relate to each other. For example, Loyalty tempered by reason gives people their sense of duty, which is something I hold strongly to. Reason tempered by faith leads to hope. Loyalty combined with faith creates love. The three in consumate balance creates the ideal principled life.
There are times when I operate too much out of reason. Like perhaps I should value my loyalty to the organization I'm supporting and should do every thing I can possible to support the tournament. But then I temper it with reason and realize I have a duty to uphold my belief that another person should not be a means to an end without knowing consent.
Or sometimes in my relationships, I would get into this habit of always arguing out of reason no matter what the situation was. It took me time, but I realized that sometimes it's best to temper reason by arguing out of love in order to keep what's important.
This is the code I follow. When I deviate from it, bad things happen. When I don't keep it in balance, sometimes even worse things happen. But for the life of me, I don't think I'll be abandoning it just because the result of one decision is poor. It would take some really terrible things in order for me to change.
It's a matter of faith. It is easy to believe in an idea when it is working well. But often times it is even more important to believe in it when things are bad.
Keep Chasing It,
DeLux
PS: I got a promotion in the Smash Lab today. Now I'm partially in charge of the usergroup and admissions
PPS: I won a $100 gift card today
PPPS: I removed M2K from the title in order to remove the perception I'm trying to deceive people, per mod request. Mostly because of the mod request given it wasn't an attempt to deceive anyone.
