I think this one speaks for itself:
This will be my final letter and if you dont get it, you never fucking will. In any court in the country, speaking of USA, would every hold me to an agreement under destress. If you are destroying my property and I say I will do anything you say as long as you stop, NO FUCKING COURT ON THE PLANET WOULD HOLD ME TO THAT AGREEMENT!!!!
END OF SUBJECT!
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July 27th, 2008 at 5:59 am
He’s got you there, the man knows the law!
July 27th, 2008 at 7:31 am
Haha. That kid is abusing some substance he shouldn’t >.> (A little cruel to say, but he has dug his own hole).
July 27th, 2008 at 9:49 am
See, Marlenus, I think I found your problem. You let him think he’s people. By talking to him like a semi mature individual, you made him think that he was allowed to talk and spew whatever crap came from his mouth. Seen it a thousand times online.
July 27th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Actually, this whole business is a little sad. For two years this guy has been hating on me, but not until yesterday did I realize he was one of the people who don’t understand that it’s only a game and that we’re all here to have fun. I thought it was just some odd role-play thing, a “build up your e-peen by blustering enemies into submission” process of some sort.
Instead we have recently learned that he considers his POS his home, he thinks his modules are as precious as children, and that being frustrated by his enemies is worth lathering himself into a rage of shouted vulgarities.
Dr. Marlenus would prescribe blue sky, sunshine, and a demanding girlfriend (He plays three accounts for 16 hours a day? Really?) but I don’t think the patient would accept the medicine.
July 27th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Beware! You have provoked the pedant!
I don’t know whether V.Z. is trying to invoke honor or law, but he’s really made a hash of things. Honor is very clear: keeping one’s word, for whatever reason it is given, is paramount. This can be in carelessness: in the Mabinogi, a bride groom at the feast promises to give a beggar what he wants, and when the beggar asks for the bride, the groom consents. In Chretien de Troyes’ Lancelot, Arthur lets Kay lead the queen into great danger after foolishly promising to fulfill a request. This can be based on misunderstanding, as in Chaucer’s Franklin’s Tale, when a faithful wife deals with a pesky squire by saying she will sleep with him only when he’s removed all the rocks from the Breton coast: when he hires an illusionist to make it seem that he has, the lady’s husband and the lady agree, in deep distress, that she should keep her word, because breaking one’s word, even when the contrary intent was clear, is worse than adultery (the squire, shamed, does not compel the lady to follow through). It can be undertaken at grave personal risk. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain, bound by oath, seeks out the man who will behead him rather than avoiding him, because breaking his word is worse than death. In The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell, King Arthur does the same. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, “giving the lie” was tantamount to a challenge to duel. Honorable people do not break their word, even to save themselves. V.Z. broke his word — and not to save himself, but just to save some property.
He pleads that promises made under duress are not binding. This is a legal principle, not a principle of honor, and it is based on utterly opposite logic. Honor (before the nineteenth century tried to democratize it), was an elitist system designed to get powerful people voluntarily to limit themselves instead of becoming tyrants: it applied to the strong. The logic of duress, on the other hand, is predicated on weakness instead of strength: it carves out exceptions so that weak people can try to save themselves. (This is why it was assumed that the poor would not be honorable). V.Z. has to decide: is he weak, and therefore allowed to break his word under duress but excluded from the circles of honor; or is he honorable, and therefore bound to hold himself to a higher standard than mere law and the subterfuges of the insignificant?
I would be curious to hear from someone who knows the law (Marlenus) whether his legal claim is in fact too when the threat was not to life but to property? Obviously, it would not be in third-party situations. I could not foreswear my debt to the hardware company because I “needed” to take their equipment to protect my house from a hurricane. But does it apply when the promise is made not to a third party but to the person doing the threatening, if the threat is legal? American law does not allow many legal threats to property, but creditors repossessing property or parking enforcement officers disabling cars are protected. I do not know if promises made under illegal threat to property are set aside because of the illegality or because of the threat. If what Marlenus did was legal under Eve’s rules, and if V.Z. made a documented promise in response, would a court set it aside?
To conclude (at last) I’ve got little patience for people who assume honor means resolutely insisting on their pride and pleasure rather than on their duties. I know Ironfleet intends to bore him to insanity, which precludes putting a big stake through his heart, but it is too much to ask for a small stake through his lips?
July 27th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Whoo! MFH, your pedantry is always welcome here; it gives me an opportunity to unleash my own, and blame somebody else. ;-)
If I were pushed to frame this in legal terms, I’d argue that VampireZim is conflating and confusing two different sets of related facts. There is no doubt nor dispute that I, Marlenus, and my merry band of heavy-missile-chucking corp-mates, committed what in the real world would be recognized as a tort: destruction of property. Nor do we dispute a (frustrated) intent to commit what would be, in the real world, a crime: the trespessory taking and carrying away the personal property of another, with an intent to deprive them permanently of it.
In the real world, these acts are, rightly, judged negatively. In game, views differ; some celebrate such behavior, others despise it. The game mechanics allow it, or did at the time; VampireZIM suggests that the game mechanics were broken, but I honestly do not know whether that was the case, and reject utterly his bizarre claim that I must have known they were.
But that’s only the triggering incident. The important set of facts are the conversational ones between Ironfleet and VampireZIM. The current argument is, does VampireZIM have honor? He claims he does, and he claims it was besmirched by Ironfleet’s vandalism. I’ll leave the latter point for others to decide. My argument is that the honor VampireZIM claims is spurious, because he behaved without honor toward Ironfleet; he made a promise of convenience, and then broke that promise when it became convenient to break it.
His argument, in legal terms, is that he made the argument under duress; that a promise made under threat of destruction of property is not binding. This is essentially a contractual claim; the argument is that there was no true meeting of the minds, no genuine agreement that constitutes an enforceable contract. It’s a difficult legal question; on the one hand, courts are hesitant to enforce contracts where there was undue influence or any other blight on the apparent meeting of minds, but on the other, every contract is made for the purpose of economic gain or loss, so the idea that an urgent motive to avoid economic loss prevents effective contract formation is ludicrous.
Ultimately, I’d say that in the real world, where “the rules” prohibit such property destruction, courts would be inclined to agree with Zim — no binding contract was ever formed, because he was motivated to voice false agreement by the desire to avoid a genuinely wrongful loss. But if you apply EVE “law” — where such destruction is common and normal and allowed by the rules — then contract formation would be clear and his broken promise, a breach.
But ultimately, what we have here is not a legal dispute, but a factual one. His claim to have honor is a functional one — he is advancing it because he wants to make agreements with me, and he is using the claim as the basis of an argument that I can trust his word. The significance of his previous broken promise — and his repeated statements that promises made to me are not binding on him because of what he sees as my low character — is practical, not legal or moral. As a proven oath-breaker, it does not matter whether his oath-breaking was justified by any legal or moral principle; what matters is that he’s got a demonstrated history of breaking his word, and can thus be expected to do so again in future.
The way I see it, VampireZIM needs to be able to claim “I did not break my word.” In fact, the best he could hope to claim is “I was justified in breaking my word.” Those two claims are very different, functionally, but he does not recognize this.
August 4th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
@Mac Flecknoe’s Heir
Well said.