Poll: Justified Extermination

[Canadamus Prime]

Possibly, but only in a scenario that could only exist in a sci fi/fantasy setting where you get Always Neutral/Lawful/Chaotic Evil races. In real life you can't paint an entire group with one large brush so exterminating them all would never be justified.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Also this bottleneck? If that were true, most modern humans would not exist, because a stable minimum breeding population for genetic diversity, especially in humans, is 5,000 individuals.

Actually is't around 130, with the number dropping to to as little as 70-90 if you are careful in planning over the course of multiple generations to prevent inbreeding. Necessary genetic diversity isn't as high as some would suspect

No it's literally a minimum of 5,000 individuals. Less than that and a species/sub-group will go extinct within a few generations, without the aid of outside intervention.

I'm not sure where you got that information, because that's wrong (specifically due to the fact that the number differs greatly depending on both the species and the genetic diversity within the group in question).

Though it's also a moot point given there was outside intervention in the form of Neanderthals, Denisovan and later groups of humans. The only thing is that those later groups of humans don't have all non-Africans as their decedents.

When I say outside intervention I mean outside technological intervention that lowers the mortality rate amongst young of a species, which in mammals is about 90%, which fail to reach adulthood. 5,000 was the minimum sample size to rebuild the local wild sage grouse population in captivity, for release. Anything less would have been insufficient in the breeding program to restore the local sage grouse, which was hunted to the point of being endangered.

The Neanderthals weren't a significant outside intervention, as they died out... They also didn't reduce the mortality rate of young. Also you ignored what I freaking said. All humans alive today, who are not of strictly pure African ancestry, have at very minimum 1-4% Neanderthal DNA. That sort of cross contamination does not and cannot happen without a significant proportion of interbreeding in the general population of Cro-magnon humans at the time, and the Neanderthals who were present.

 

[Saelune]

Do we consider viruses or diseases as living things? (I genuinely dont know) Cause fuck cancer.

 

[SupahEwok]

Do we consider viruses or diseases as living things? (I genuinely dont know) Cause fuck cancer.

Well, as a matter of terminology, a disease is just a categorized failing of the body. It's what we call a related bundle of symptoms, and trying to apply terms of life and death to a disease doesn't really make sense, from a tautological point of view. Cancer in particular is simply a failing of the body's cellular reproduction. We don't have a full list of what causes cancer, although a good chunk of cancer is caused by related diseases such as hepatitis, which themselves are caused by viruses.

In general, bacteria is considered to be alive as they are single celled organisms, viruses are... complicated, but last I heard they don't quite pass the life test, simply being bundles of autonomous proteins. Lots of other types of single celled organisms can cause disease but I can't name all of them.

 

[Saelune]

Do we consider viruses or diseases as living things? (I genuinely dont know) Cause fuck cancer.

Well, as a matter of terminology, a disease is just a categorized failing of the body. It's what we call a related bundle of symptoms, and trying to apply terms of life and death to a disease doesn't really make sense, from a tautological point of view. Cancer in particular is simply a failing of the body's cellular reproduction. We don't have a full list of what causes cancer, although a good chunk of cancer is caused by related diseases such as hepatitis, which themselves are caused by viruses.

In general, bacteria is considered to be alive as they are single celled organisms, viruses are... complicated, but last I heard they don't quite pass the life test, simply being bundles of autonomous proteins. Lots of other types of single celled organisms can cause disease but I can't name all of them.

Well, Im sure theres a few kinds of bacteria the world could do without.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Yes, but only for certified Untermenschen like moral degenerates, subhuman delinquents and Escapist posters.

Actually, I fully agree with the following:

Purge them all! The Galaxy belongs to Humanity, and living corpses are abominations. There is no room in this Galaxy for them.
I say unleash the Wolves!

Anyone and anything that opposes the Imperium is an enemy to be crushed without mercy and without remose: kill them all and let the Emperor sort them out.

 

[Phasmal]

It's not really that the Forsaken are hell-bent on being bastards, it's more that they're making Slyvanas more and more cartoonishly evil. I wouldn't be at all surprised if she ends up a raid boss any time soon.

So it's more like getting rid of the crazy ruler than exterminating an entire species.

Slyvanas' recent characterisation irritates me, mostly because she bangs on about how the Forsaken can't reproduce and they desperately need to be able to make more in order to continue to be a powerful force for the Horde and then when you click on her again, she says "What are we if not slaves to this torment?".
Lady, do you want more undead or not??

 

[Wrex Brogan]

...I feel the answer here is 'No', with minimal room for wiggling unless we start breaking distinctions down to 'undead horrors' and 'demonic forces that want to eat us from the inside out'.

Besides, the Forsaken will never be exterminated. Unless Gnomes go as well, little bastards keep LoSing my heals!

It's not really that the Forsaken are hell-bent on being bastards, it's more that they're making Slyvanas more and more cartoonishly evil. I wouldn't be at all surprised if she ends up a raid boss any time soon.

So it's more like getting rid of the crazy ruler than exterminating an entire species.

Slyvanas' recent characterisation irritates me, mostly because she bangs on about how the Forsaken can't reproduce and they desperately need to be able to make more in order to continue to be a powerful force for the Horde and then when you click on her again, she says "What are we if not slaves to this torment?".
Lady, do you want more undead or not??

On the bright side, at least she's getting more build up than Garrosh. I'll take cartoonishly evil over the writers themselves going 'hah, yeah, we sure fucked Garrosh up, didn't we? Our bad for Siege of Ogrimmar guys'.

 

[Recusant]

One big thing here, Paragon: a religion is not a race. You can reject an idea, you can't reject your genetics- at least not until gene therapies vastly improve, and then the world will see horrors like it has never known. The twenty-second and twenty-third centuries will be excellent times to be dead.

It worked for our ancient ancestors. The current homo sapien setup is due largely to the purging of other varients.

I'm pretty sure the Toba supereruption wasn't due to human effort.

 

[FalloutJack]

One big thing here, Paragon: a religion is not a race. You can reject an idea, you can't reject your genetics- at least not until gene therapies vastly improve, and then the world will see horrors like it has never known. The twenty-second and twenty-third centuries will be excellent times to be dead.

It worked for our ancient ancestors. The current homo sapien setup is due largely to the purging of other varients.

I'm pretty sure the Toba supereruption wasn't due to human effort.

Curious. This is the first I've heard of that. Explainitude?

 

[Remus]

One big thing here, Paragon: a religion is not a race. You can reject an idea, you can't reject your genetics- at least not until gene therapies vastly improve, and then the world will see horrors like it has never known. The twenty-second and twenty-third centuries will be excellent times to be dead.

It worked for our ancient ancestors. The current homo sapien setup is due largely to the purging of other varients.

I'm pretty sure the Toba supereruption wasn't due to human effort.

Curious. This is the first I've heard of that. Explainitude?

Supereruption? Yea first I've heard too. I'm sure there's been several, just didn't know one specifically impacted homo erectus. I mean, there was Pompeii but that was neither super nor during prehistory.

On the question: No. There are always exceptions to a rule. N Korea is a bad place due to one manchild, not the whole country. Wiping out anything completely, whether it be in nature, or a particular subsect of humanity, only creates a vacuum that is often filled by something far worse. I'd hate to be responsible for the horrors that followed an already bad decision.

 

[Recusant]

One big thing here, Paragon: a religion is not a race. You can reject an idea, you can't reject your genetics- at least not until gene therapies vastly improve, and then the world will see horrors like it has never known. The twenty-second and twenty-third centuries will be excellent times to be dead.

It worked for our ancient ancestors. The current homo sapien setup is due largely to the purging of other varients.

I'm pretty sure the Toba supereruption wasn't due to human effort.

Curious. This is the first I've heard of that. Explainitude?

The Toba supervolcano (which is in Sumatra, modern day Indonesia, I think; not sure on where the borders lie) erupted 70,000 years ago, and really screwed things up. Global temperatures dropped about 2 degrees, and boatloads of life forms died out- including every last branch of the human family, save for the Neanderthals (who were very far away), possibly the Denisovians (who archeological evidence is scanty at best on anyway) and proto-AMHs (anatomically modern humans). Our big shtick as a homo sapiens subspecies (or however you want to draw that particular line) is taking standard mammalian adaptability and dialing it up to 12. If one of our food sources goes extinct, we just turn to another. The total human population was reduced to something between 5-15 thousand (estimates vary), but we bounced back (spoiler alert).

 

[Saelune]

One big thing here, Paragon: a religion is not a race. You can reject an idea, you can't reject your genetics- at least not until gene therapies vastly improve, and then the world will see horrors like it has never known. The twenty-second and twenty-third centuries will be excellent times to be dead.

It worked for our ancient ancestors. The current homo sapien setup is due largely to the purging of other varients.

I'm pretty sure the Toba supereruption wasn't due to human effort.

Curious. This is the first I've heard of that. Explainitude?

The Toba supervolcano (which is in Sumatra, modern day Indonesia, I think; not sure on where the borders lie) erupted 70,000 years ago, and really screwed things up. Global temperatures dropped about 2 degrees, and boatloads of life forms died out- including every last branch of the human family, save for the Neanderthals (who were very far away), possibly the Denisovians (who archeological evidence is scanty at best on anyway) and proto-AMHs (anatomically modern humans). Our big shtick as a homo sapiens subspecies (or however you want to draw that particular line) is taking standard mammalian adaptability and dialing it up to 12. If one of our food sources goes extinct, we just turn to another. The total human population was reduced to something between 5-15 thousand (estimates vary), but we bounced back (spoiler alert).

Ya know, its stuff like this that really make me wonder how different life on earth could have been.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

This is THE most difficult question.

On one hand, if a species is capable of free will, then it's just outright not right to do it. On the other hand, if they cannot be communicated with and they are relentlessly pursuing your species' destruction and will bounce back with even more powerful weapons if you defeat them and leave even a few of them alive, then really, there's not really anything else you CAN do.

A race would have to be cartoonishly evil and purely devoted for it to be even remotely something on the table, or just plain unable to understand the value of life while spreading like a virus (So, like actual viruses). Like, I'm sure even the Orcs of Tolkien could find some form of balance. Hell, some Draconians managed it in the Dragonlance books, and that was kind of amazing. On the other hand, the X Parasites from Metroid Fusion? Yeah, no. No you can't negotiate or deal with that.

Oh, and on that note, just one last thing to throw in here. If Metroid Fusion showed us anything, it's that you should be REALLY careful about completely eradicating a species. You don't know if it's suppressing something far, FAR worse that DEFINITELY needs eradicating if it gets out of hand. ;>_>

 

[Paragon Fury]

...I feel the answer here is 'No', with minimal room for wiggling unless we start breaking distinctions down to 'undead horrors' and 'demonic forces that want to eat us from the inside out'.

Besides, the Forsaken will never be exterminated. Unless Gnomes go as well, little bastards keep LoSing my heals!

It's not really that the Forsaken are hell-bent on being bastards, it's more that they're making Slyvanas more and more cartoonishly evil. I wouldn't be at all surprised if she ends up a raid boss any time soon.

So it's more like getting rid of the crazy ruler than exterminating an entire species.

Slyvanas' recent characterisation irritates me, mostly because she bangs on about how the Forsaken can't reproduce and they desperately need to be able to make more in order to continue to be a powerful force for the Horde and then when you click on her again, she says "What are we if not slaves to this torment?".
Lady, do you want more undead or not??

On the bright side, at least she's getting more build up than Garrosh. I'll take cartoonishly evil over the writers themselves going 'hah, yeah, we sure fucked Garrosh up, didn't we? Our bad for Siege of Ogrimmar guys'.

If you read the books and then connect the dots with the game, Garrosh is less cartoonish super-villain and more the Horde's own Arthas; a headstrong idealistic leader who eventually gets corrupted and brought down over time and eventually becomes a monster instead of the hero they wanted to be.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

You have to have something cartoonishly evil and destructive for it to be justifiable. The closer to real life something is, the more abhorrent the suggestion becomes.

Basically, take the Nazis, but instead of there being doubts and in-fighting among the population and leadership of Germans, replace that with near Imperial Japan or North Korean fervent worship of their leaders for Adolf Hitler, and the general populace fully supports and is dedicated to the idea of the Aryan Race and the extermination/conversion of all non-Germans/Aryans into them and constantly tries to improve or come up with newer, more horrific ways to make this happen.

A common time travel trope is the idea of going back and killing Hitler. But really, the better thing to do would be go back and preventing Hitler from being an evil douche, perhaps by going to a child Hitler and helping him make friends with the Epstein's next door.

or just helping him get into art school.

 

[DementedSheep]

Only in fiction, where always evil is a thing.
I'm not into WoW so don't know that much of the lore but from what I played of them I would not class the Forsaken as a race. They're cursed members of another race.
If you had some Forsaken just minding their own business somewhere making the most of the situation (and not trying to make more Forsaken) then leave them alone but I don't see any particular reason to try to "preserve" them or actively avoid wiping them out.

 

[Paragon Fury]

You have to have something cartoonishly evil and destructive for it to be justifiable. The closer to real life something is, the more abhorrent the suggestion becomes.

Basically, take the Nazis, but instead of there being doubts and in-fighting among the population and leadership of Germans, replace that with near Imperial Japan or North Korean fervent worship of their leaders for Adolf Hitler, and the general populace fully supports and is dedicated to the idea of the Aryan Race and the extermination/conversion of all non-Germans/Aryans into them and constantly tries to improve or come up with newer, more horrific ways to make this happen.

A common time travel trope is the idea of going back and killing Hitler. But really, the better thing to do would be go back and preventing Hitler from being an evil douche, perhaps by going to a child Hitler and helping him make friends with the Epstein's next door.

or just helping him get into art school.

A more interesting, if exponentially more horrible plan would be to go back in time and instead keep help Hitler keep his sanity by stopping his doctor from giving him those "medicines" (which helped destroy his men) and subtlety keep him focused.

Then you get to see what the world is like when Germany controls all of Europe, much of Africa and the Russians are dead!

 

[DudeistBelieve]

You have to have something cartoonishly evil and destructive for it to be justifiable. The closer to real life something is, the more abhorrent the suggestion becomes.

Basically, take the Nazis, but instead of there being doubts and in-fighting among the population and leadership of Germans, replace that with near Imperial Japan or North Korean fervent worship of their leaders for Adolf Hitler, and the general populace fully supports and is dedicated to the idea of the Aryan Race and the extermination/conversion of all non-Germans/Aryans into them and constantly tries to improve or come up with newer, more horrific ways to make this happen.

A common time travel trope is the idea of going back and killing Hitler. But really, the better thing to do would be go back and preventing Hitler from being an evil douche, perhaps by going to a child Hitler and helping him make friends with the Epstein's next door.

or just helping him get into art school.

A more interesting, if exponentially more horrible plan would be to go back in time and instead keep help Hitler keep his sanity by stopping his doctor from giving him those "medicines" (which helped destroy his men) and subtlety keep him focused.

Then you get to see what the world is like when Germany controls all of Europe, much of Africa and the Russians are dead!

Yeah but... Jewish girls are cute, and I still harbor a crush on Anne Frank from when I was 14 and first read her diary.

So that's gonna be a big negatory on the whole "Help Hitler Win" for me, big buddy.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

...I feel the answer here is 'No', with minimal room for wiggling unless we start breaking distinctions down to 'undead horrors' and 'demonic forces that want to eat us from the inside out'.

Besides, the Forsaken will never be exterminated. Unless Gnomes go as well, little bastards keep LoSing my heals!

It's not really that the Forsaken are hell-bent on being bastards, it's more that they're making Slyvanas more and more cartoonishly evil. I wouldn't be at all surprised if she ends up a raid boss any time soon.

So it's more like getting rid of the crazy ruler than exterminating an entire species.

Slyvanas' recent characterisation irritates me, mostly because she bangs on about how the Forsaken can't reproduce and they desperately need to be able to make more in order to continue to be a powerful force for the Horde and then when you click on her again, she says "What are we if not slaves to this torment?".
Lady, do you want more undead or not??

On the bright side, at least she's getting more build up than Garrosh. I'll take cartoonishly evil over the writers themselves going 'hah, yeah, we sure fucked Garrosh up, didn't we? Our bad for Siege of Ogrimmar guys'.

If you read the books and then connect the dots with the game, Garrosh is less cartoonish super-villain and more the Horde's own Arthas; a headstrong idealistic leader who eventually gets corrupted and brought down over time and eventually becomes a monster instead of the hero they wanted to be.

I have read the books, the problem is in the books he's got... well, actual character and that. In the game? Not so much. Like, the shift from his Cataclysm characterization to his Mists of Pandaria characterization in the game itself was so sudden and out of nowhere it felt less like an evolution of a character and more like the writers desperately scrambling for an end-of-expac boss and went 'well people don't like Garrosh, right? He'll do!'.

Seriously, Book Garrosh - intelligent, plans ahead, manipulates his opponents, has clear motivations and goals
Game Garrosh - YELLING, ANGRY, MORE YELLING, SOME YELLING DIRECTED AT THRALL, ANGRYYYYY, brief moment of introspection on the true meaning of Orcish honour and how he must live up to the name Hellscream, ANGRY YELLING!!!!!

They fucked up with Garrosh in the games. Fucked up hard. It shouldn't be too hard for them to not repeat themselves with Sylvannas at least - not killing her off in a questline nobody gives a shit about by a character who people don't give a shit about (who also has to cheat to win and that makes them the good guy???) would be a great start.