Ethics.
On one of the forums I use, fox_theone asked the question, ‘Is it wrong to take an AFC’s girl?’ What follows is his question word for word.
I’m having a bit of a moral dilemma. There’s a HB8 with an AFC as far as I can tell. I haven’t spoken to him but his body language screams AFC. He’s always looking at the ground when walking, he carries the HB8′s bag when they’re walking even though it’s really light etc. I feel bad for the guy because I was an AFC too.
Should I still game the girlfriend? My conscience is acting up and I don’t know what to do Very Happy
It really got me thinking on the ethics of what we do in game.
Anyone who knows me will agree that I’m a good guy. I’m a dick, I’m arrogant, I’m egocentric, but I’m good.
Well I’ve been through so much with you. Nobody that I’ve ever been with has helped me to grow so much. Nobody’s ever seemed to care like you do. You’re not just a ‘Boyfriend’ for lack of better words, you’re a best friend. i always want you in my life. And I hope you’d wanna be with me in the same way I wanna be with you, and although that may never happen, being with you, even polygamous, may just be enough, because you mean more to me than anyone. X
That is a text that my ‘girlfriend’ sent me. She lives back down south and I see her whenever I visit home. I met her about two years ago, at college, and introduced her to my friend ‘A’. ‘A’ was a complete AFC and kissed her once, maybe twice over the three months (I think) that they were together.
Now, I used to be that guy who looked out for everyone, the ‘nice guy’ throughout high school, never stood out, never really fit in though and in the seven years between high school and college in which I travelled, I stopped trying to do either and just started watching the world. I watched interactions between people, businesses, read the papers and watched everything I could that was happening in the world around me. I noticed the patterns and the pieces that fit together and I learned many lessons.
One lesson I learned is that we all need to be more introspective. We ask other people for advice on difficult subjects for validation of our actions, we judge ourselves by everyone else’s grading system but too often do we ignore our own. The problem with this is summarised in the following Dr Cox quote:
“Lady, people aren’t chocolates. D’you know what they are mostly? Bastards. Bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling. But I don’t find them half as annoying as I find naive bobble-headed optimists who walk around vomiting sunshine.”
The fact is that whoever wrote that script was right. The vast, Vast majority of people are bastards and can be categorised along a line, the two extreme points are as follows:
1) There are those that care for nobody but themselves, they are immoral and don’t care what the consequences of their actions are, only that they get the result they want. These people are bastards and either don’t know or don’t care.
2) Those who care for everyone else before themselves, however in doing so become gossips, convincing themselves that it is in the best interest of person ‘X’ if they tell person ‘Y’ about event ‘Z’. These people are bastards but convince themselves otherwise.
What you need to decide is where along that line each of your values lie. Don’t just ask other people’s advice and follow it blindly. By all means, ask their advice, take into account their views and opinions, think about the effects of your actions and whilst you shouldn’t be a bastard like everyone else, learn to be a badass. Decide on YOUR views, on where YOUR lines are, on what YOU are willing to do, both in relationships and out.
Choose your own ethical standpoint, define your own reality. Only you can decide who you are.
