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says the monster intent on genocide
I’m a lovecraftian horror from space. What is your excuse?
Man, Cthulhu has lived in the murky depths of the ocean for TENS OF MILLIONS of years now, and people still comment on where it’s from originally. /s
Earth is technically in space tho
So… are we the aliens? 🤯
Humans are the true cosmic horror.
Maybe Cthulhu wants to kill us all because we make it’s brain hurt to look at.
I think that part is referring to humans.
from the perspective of any less powerful creature from any part of the universe that isnt earth, so are humans?
Cthulu: Shut up you monster, I’m older than you.
same
It’s the genocide to end all genocide.
Last time something similar was said it went wonderful I think…
what could go wrong?
Dexter rules, if you genocide serial genociders then it’s net positive.
you think collective punishment is the way to go?
4 people from Cincinnati rob a bank, so everybody in Cincinnati should go to jail?
Hardly, it’s a flippant comment about a fictional cosmic horror.
there are a lot of earnest comments in this thread about the practical horror of collective punishment being a valid option that should be considered.
I’m on the other side of the fence.
Blind collective punishment is not a “net positive”.
Yeah I was just drawing a funny connection between the Cthulhu comic and a show about that exact moral question. I do not sincerely endorse genocide or the Dexter philosophy.
cool, nice username btw
Let’s just do the ethical thing and only exterminate the humans who drive a car or eat meat. That should handily dismiss any concerns about collective punishment, since all the innocent humans get to live.
makes perfect sense, since people of every age and culture get to choose the food and transportation available to them.
you should probably throw in people that ride buses/trains that aren’t filled to capacity.
“…That should handily dismiss any concerns about collective punishment…”
condemning two groups for collective punishment is not much of a solution to collective punishment, but I don’t see why you couldn’t bring it up with one of the eldritch gods and see what they think.
Yeah, that one rings a bit hollow, although I guess it could use it as an argument we’re dumb, because we’re doing it to ourselves. All the rest could theoretically apply, though.
“could, theoretically”, sure.
but in practice those condemnations are too broadly applied and don’t reflect the constant struggle for progress or range of human success.
What an appropriate subject of conversation, because I’m pretty sure by the art style this is Existential Comics.
The use of “in practice” suggests an absolute morality, which I think Lovecraft would object to, and I think many Lemmy users would as well. That aside, pretty much the only counter to this is that we’ve toned down the war, slavery and brutal exploitation over the last 200 years. The last 10,000 before that and probably the last 200,000 before that are kind of the same thing happening over and over again. What’s more, nobody can adequately explain why it’s suddenly started to improve, or if it will stay that way. For all we know, we live in the turbulent transition period between agrarian hereditary autocracy and dystopian high-tech hereditary autocracy.
All in all, humanity is (morally) shit by humanity’s own standards. By nihilistic or existential standards humanity is neutral, as is everything else. Cthulhu’s standards are canonically beyond comprehension.
“The use of “in practice” suggests an absolute morality”
how?
The ability to choose how you act suggests and “absolute morality?”
“which I think Lovecraft would object to”
why?
he had pretty black and white beliefs, like ranking races objectively.
“I think many Lemmy users would as well.”
I don’t see your polls for all of your conjectures-
“That aside”
oh you’re just writing stuff that you don’t even care enough about to support.
“the only counter to this…”
a pretty good counter to this is the justification of collective punishment
One person from a city of a million people commits murder, and you agree that The logical conclusion is to execute the population of that City in its entirety.
that’s a poorly reasoned and executed reaction.
Why are you executing all those children? Why are you executing all the mothers and fathers and couples, the teachers and firefighters tirelessly working to create a better society?
what about the animals in that city, are they all spared and taken care of after your genocide?
No? cthulhu destroys the entire ecosystem as well?
obviously collective genocide and indiscriminate destruction is not the answer to specific acts of sporadic violence.
it’s a lazy , cynical, convenient solution embracing the cowardly destruction of life it purports to censure.
“humanity is (morally) shit by humanity’s own standards”
No, humanity is shit by your limited standards.
I’m not sure how to respond to that many one-liner points all at once, so I’ll pick and choose (quite) a bit.
Speaking of, your last point is literally just “no u”, so no, I’m not going to run a poll of users. It’s pretty insulting you’d expect effort that lopsided.
Lovecraft certainly had an (ahem) strong affinity for human, specifically white, specifically Anglo-American morality, aesthetics and general ways of doing things. He also acknowledged and deeply hated that there were other ways of doing things. In fact, the whole point of his Mythos was that, in a universe then-recently discovered to have multiple galaxies full of billions of stars each, nothing may be universal (and that we should be afraid). His letters make that pretty clear.
If you’re a moral relativist, there is no practical side to morality separate from the theory, since it’s an arbitrary construct. You choose a theory of morality, and then the theory and it’s application is all you have.
I’m not agreeing with Cthulhu here. We were talking about the whether these are valid, non-hypocritical reasons he could want to destroy humanity, which is a separate question from if he then should. It’s possible to not believe in punishment at all! Then you came in saying humans are pretty great actually, and that’s the claim I’m really interested in examining. You didn’t substantially respond about that, though.
“I’m not going to run a poll of users”
nobody asked you to, and you not having this knowledge is precisely my point.
I’m specifically pointing out that you’re drawing conclusions based on your assumptions about how tens of thousands of people think that you have no evidence for.
“you’d expect effort that lopsided.”
I do not expect you to source or logically reason out your conclusions; that is the problem with your assumptions, as I mentioned in my previous comment.
“I’m not agreeing with Cthulhu here.”
Great, that’s one down.
“Then you came in saying humans are pretty great actually”
you are incorrect.
I said “collective genocide and indiscriminate destruction is not the answer to specific acts of sporadic violence”
“that’s the claim I’m really interested in examining[your own claim that humans are pretty great].”
That is a claim you made, not a claim I made, but there’s plenty of supporting evidence.
What specifically are you curious about regarding “humans being pretty great”?
“You didn’t substantially respond about that, though.”
a natural response to not having received any questions.
Alright, since you seem like the kind of person that appreciates hyper-literalness:
Yeah, that one rings a bit hollow, although I guess it could use it as an argument we’re dumb, because we’re doing it to ourselves. All the rest could theoretically apply, though.
“could, theoretically”, sure.
but in practice those condemnations are too broadly applied and don’t reflect the constant struggle for progress or range of human success.
Do you intend to imply that “the constant struggle” makes humanity more worthy than our actions would imply, yes or no?
If yes, than you’re saying, relative to what was previously implied, that humans are pretty great. I supplied some reasons that they aren’t.
If no, why do you have a problem with what I said?
Alternately, if you do not have a problem with what I said, why are you here?
I like how this is illustrated, Cthulhu looks like a dude with a dad bod in a loose fitting wetsuit.
Dude hasn’t moved his ass for 10,000 years.
How any Outer Gods would actually answer:
Truly the greatest Mountain Dew flavour
‘Wyll approves’
“A whole ass country just re-elected the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep.”
How can you say that - it’s a totally different color?
(The rest of the looks are there tho)If we’re going with Cthulhu Wars colors, the orange faction is the Sleeper, and their Great Old One is Tsathoggua. I’d like to quote a description from “The Tale of Satampra Zeiro” for no particular reason :
He was very squat and pot-bellied, his head was more like a monstrous toad than a deity
Yes, please destroy us.
I would help our great ancient one, no questions asked.
The moral implications of not choosing extermination of humans are just too big for me to even contemplate.
I’d also be on board, especially if comes with Eldritch Blast.
Omg I would totally eldritch blast all the (human) things!
Ok, so what are you bringing to the table with “your” destruction plan?
I thought he was gonna realize that we are gonna destroy ourselves anyway so he can just go back to sleep
Same, I thought he’d come around to figuring that we’re going to torture humanity way more thoroughly than cosmic horrors would.
Could you just destroy our systems of organization based on scarcity, trauma, and inadequate understanding of the world around us, instead?
“Listen, I am an ancient eldritch god, not Santa Claus…”
And the people who think those things are good.
No, it’s the only way to be sure, it’s madness or nuking you from orbit.
If Cthulu’s eldritch aim is good enough to target whatever genes and neurons cause authoritarianism, we could save the parts of humanity worth saving!
