Get mad, shoot your family, bad experiences and slight suggestions

[someguy]

You’d be fine mutilating the dead body of a recently deceased family member? Or a child? Or mutilating the dead body of a recently deceased family member that’s still showing signs of life?

Now, I’ve personally never done any of those things, and it’s hard to tell for sure how you’d react in a situation like cataclysm, but I can imagine I might find it a wee bit distressing. Either you don’t know yourself as well as you think you do, or you do… and there’s a non-zero chance you’re a sociopath.

Hell, even if the psychological effects weren’t immediate, eventually a decent ratio of the survivors in cataclysm would probably end up suffering from PTSD or something similar (PS not suggesting the game model that! Although it is an interesting idea… kinda like Darkest Dungeon).

[Dlightfull]

[quote=“someguy, post:5, topic:10141”]You’d be fine mutilating the dead body of a recently deceased family member? Or a child? Or mutilating the dead body of a recently deceased family member that’s still showing signs of life?

Now, I’ve personally never done any of those things, and it’s hard to tell for sure how you’d react in a situation like cataclysm, but I can imagine I might find it a wee bit distressing. Either you don’t know yourself as well as you think you do, or you do… and there’s a non-zero chance you’re a sociopath.

Hell, even if the psychological effects weren’t immediate, eventually a decent ratio of the survivors in cataclysm would probably end up suffering from PTSD or something similar (PS not suggesting the game model that! Although it is an interesting idea… kinda like Darkest Dungeon).[/quote]

Your problem is that you judge everything i wrote from your worldview (google translate suggested it but i think it doesn’t mean the same thing as the original).

For me a dead body, doesn’t matter whom it was, is not more important than a rock or anything else. The body is like a costume for the soul. Once the soul leaves the body, it has nothing to do with that human being anymore. So yeah, i could butcher a human body just as easy as butchering the body of an animal i slew for food. No emotions involved, like at all.

It’s just physical matter, like pork meat, for example. I guess you wouldn’t have anything against slicing a chunk of pork meat.

[StopSignal]

You can actually roleplay what you said here. That’s the awesome thing of the game. While you roleplay that, I roleplay a dude that got his dog killed and will try to destroy all zombies.

[Litppunk]

Another thing is that were talking about a SURVIVOR here, they might have been totally normal before the cataclysm, but they pocess qualities that MAKE them survivors, so the game doesn’t have to go out of the way to model “ordinary” people. the main character probably has a great mind for keeping together and staying focused and functional…which is WHY they aren’t ALREADY a zombie before the game starts

also… I doubt you would have NO reservations about cutting up a dead body, possible, but even with the view of “its only matter/ flesh” the mind tends to make connections, even if we feel them logically different. I don’t doubt you would still shoot zombie mom/dad/brother etc… and cut them up somehow if you thought they would come back if you didn’t, but you would probably still be a LITTLE affected by the fact that your cutting apart flesh. Even a deer is not exactly something you just dive into skinning and quartering without a little side thought of “oh shit Im doing…this.” cut up some already cooked piece of meat on your plate? sure easy enough even if you know EXACTLY where it came from on the animal, and saw the animal before when it was alive. Cuttting up a body however, lets the mind make to many full connections. I bet you could still do it, but it wouldn’t be some thoughtless action as you seem to convey.

[Dlightfull]

[quote=“Litppunk, post:8, topic:10141”]Another thing is that were talking about a SURVIVOR here, they might have been totally normal before the cataclysm, but they pocess qualities that MAKE them survivors, so the game doesn’t have to go out of the way to model “ordinary” people. the main character probably has a great mind for keeping together and staying focused and functional…which is WHY they aren’t ALREADY a zombie before the game starts

also… I doubt you would have NO reservations about cutting up a dead body, possible, but even with the view of “its only matter/ flesh” the mind tends to make connections, even if we feel them logically different. I don’t doubt you would still shoot zombie mom/dad/brother etc… and cut them up somehow if you thought they would come back if you didn’t, but you would probably still be a LITTLE affected by the fact that your cutting apart flesh. Even a deer is not exactly something you just dive into skinning and quartering without a little side thought of “oh shit Im doing…this.” cut up some already cooked piece of meat on your plate? sure easy enough even if you know EXACTLY where it came from on the animal, and saw the animal before when it was alive. Cuttting up a body however, lets the mind make to many full connections. I bet you could still do it, but it wouldn’t be some thoughtless action as you seem to convey.[/quote]

Well, to me, a deer is no worse than a human. If it’s dead, it’s dead. I would have many many psychological problems irl if i would have to kill a living animal or human being, but a zombie or butchering a dead animal/human - no emotions whatsoever.

When i kill fish, for example, i always speak to them and tell them that i’m sorry, but i have to do it since i have to eat and i beg forgiveness for taking their lives. But after they’re dead, i feel no remorse at all, whatever i do to their bodies. The same goes with animals. I couldn’t stand when my father killed pigs or chickens (we had chicken and pigs at home, just for that purpose, since we live in countryside in an eastern european country), but after they were dead, i could do anything with their bodies without any remorse.

[Litppunk]

hmm ok then. not even the first time?

[Kadian]

hmm ok then. not even the first time?

There is no reason to even argue about it. The whole situation is hypothetical, which is a problem in its own if you try to discuss how one would react.

The thing is, when the whole situation is hypothetical, you just think/hope/assume you would react like this. You can’t prove it though, as long as the situation doesn’t come true.
You, Dlightfull, seem to be a person who is accustomed to killing and butchering animals, due to your background. still, killing or butchering a human being - or something that strongly resembles a human being - is a whole other thing, as you feel potentially a lot different than towards an animal. For example, you might start thinking about the person you’re butchering, who they were, what they were doing, if they have family, how they ‘died’/got zombified, if their family/friends are still alive and so on. Automatically, as soon as you think about those things you’d create a connetion of sorts, which makes it harder to just keep butchering the corpse.
Even worse is, if you consider that there is a potential Cure against zombification. That would take the chance of living again from the person youre smashing into bits/butcher, one could argue that this is murder, and the human race (aside from rare exceptions) ‘knows’ its wrong to murder someone. (lets not argue about morality here, its just fact that most civilized nations outlaw murder. And this is in our mindset, even if the nation doesn’t exist anymore.)

On another note though, there are a few tribes in the World which even eat the corpses of the deceased in a ritual, because they believe the corpse binds the soul of the deceased to this world. They free the soul by eating the corpse. Even those tribes usually burn the corpse first though and mix the ashes into their food, they usually don’t butcher the corpse - well, I guess there ARE some tribes which literally butcher the deceased too…

[Litppunk]

I did not mean for this to be an argument… just learning more about how people operate I guess. Since I only know how I personally operate, its nice to get others perspective on…stuff.

Also I never said I was ‘used’ to it. I haven’t skinned or killed that many animals, and its been a long time since I have. But trust me the ‘I just killed Bambi’ feel isn’t a great one, especially if its not a clean kill. I don’t feel to much for pigs though. Bastards even eat each other.

[Dlightfull]

[quote=“Kadian, post:11, topic:10141”]You, Dlightfull, seem to be a person who is accustomed to killing and butchering animals, due to your background. still, killing or butchering a human being - or something that strongly resembles a human being - is a whole other thing, as you feel potentially a lot different than towards an animal. For example, you might start thinking about the person you’re butchering, who they were, what they were doing, if they have family, how they ‘died’/got zombified, if their family/friends are still alive and so on. Automatically, as soon as you think about those things you’d create a connetion of sorts, which makes it harder to just keep butchering the corpse.
Even worse is, if you consider that there is a potential Cure against zombification. That would take the chance of living again from the person youre smashing into bits/butcher, one could argue that this is murder, and the human race (aside from rare exceptions) ‘knows’ its wrong to murder someone. (lets not argue about morality here, its just fact that most civilized nations outlaw murder. And this is in our mindset, even if the nation doesn’t exist anymore.)[/quote]

You don’t understand.

For me, human beings are worse than animals, since animals live in harmony with Nature, while human beings (admittedly not all of them) are destroying her (Nature i mean, or Earth, which is the same, basically, in the context i wrote and it’s ‘her’ because Earth has a soul and because Earth is our spiritual mother and Sun is our spiritual father, at least that’s what i believe).

For me, butchering a corpse, be it animal or human, is just like tilling soil. It’s even less problematic than cutting grass or tree (which also have souls and are, thus, alive). It’s like smashing a rock, etc.

You might be right about the cure though (in CDDA world, since in a hypothetical situation in real world i don’t believe there could be a cure to something like zombification). But i’m a really bad roleplayer, so i always think from a real life perspective, rather than from game’s lore perspective.

[Litppunk]

your mistaken. People are not killing nature, we are forcing it to evolve. Mother nature always finds a way to adapt and survive, we are making our own future difficult and ensuring that many will die someday.

Although it won’t matter since mother natures going to up and kick our asses like she did the arrogant dinosaurs. So we won’t even get a chance to kill ourselves.

[Dlightfull]

[quote=“Litppunk, post:14, topic:10141”]your mistaken. People are not killing nature, we are forcing it to evolve. Mother nature always finds a way to adapt and survive, we are making our own future difficult and ensuring that many will die someday.

Although it won’t matter since mother natures going to up and kick our asses like she did the arrogant dinosaurs. So we won’t even get a chance to kill ourselves.[/quote]

Yeah, you’re right about the outcome, but we are still trying to destroy mother nature. We will only destroy ourselves, it’s true, nature will adapt and get over it.

[someguy]

[quote=“Dlightfull, post:13, topic:10141”]For me, human beings are worse than animals, since animals live in harmony with Nature, while human beings (admittedly not all of them) are destroying her (Nature i mean, or Earth, which is the same, basically, in the context i wrote and it’s ‘her’ because Earth has a soul and because Earth is our spiritual mother and Sun is our spiritual father, at least that’s what i believe).[/quote]Animals don’t live in harmony. They consume every resource available to them, which leads to excess population dying off. You’re confusing an at best temporary equilibrium with some mythical concept of balance.

Not to say I don’t think we shouldn’t manage our use of resources to better preserve our environment, but we’re practically unique in our ability to do that.

There’s no such thing as harmony in nature, if there were nothing would evolve.

[Litppunk]

[quote=“someguy, post:16, topic:10141”]Animals don’t live in harmony. They consume every resource available to them, which leads to excess population dying off. You’re confusing an at best temporary equilibrium with some mythical concept of balance.

Not to say I don’t think we shouldn’t manage our use of resources to better preserve our environment, but we’re practically unique in our ability to do that.

There’s no such thing as harmony in nature, if there were nothing would evolve.[/quote]
^^ this. I second the motion. Although some things live in symbiotic relationships with each other, which is AWESOME but that is not nature existing in harmony, just 2 (MAYBE more) species with complementary evolutions.

[Kadian]

Also I never said I was ‘used’ to it.

I spoke with Dlightfull at that point, not with you.

[quote=“Dlightfull, post:13, topic:10141”]You don’t understand.

For me, human beings are worse than animals, since animals live in harmony with Nature, while human beings (admittedly not all of them) are destroying her (Nature i mean, or Earth, which is the same, basically, in the context i wrote and it’s ‘her’ because Earth has a soul and because Earth is our spiritual mother and Sun is our spiritual father, at least that’s what i believe).[/quote]

I’m not going to argue religion with you. I’m looking at it from a scientific standpoint, humans are animals, nothing to discuss there. It is also not necessarily true that we destroy Nature/Earth. We are changing it, and, if you look in the future, we’re changing it into a world were humans won’t be able to survive. ‘Nature’ and the Earth however will survive, all Humans will be dead long before the earth will be destroyed (be it by our sun, a gigantic asteroid or what not.) Nature on the other hand will, at least on earth and earth-like planets, always find a way to survive. Even a Nuclear Holocaust or biological warfare won’t kill nature off, it will change, evolve iuntil it can live and prosper in the given environment.
Of course I still agree that we humans need to change our ways, because nature as we know it is quite beautiful, and I would like to see the human race to survive for as long as possible.

For me, butchering a corpse, be it animal or human, is just like tilling soil. It’s even less problematic than cutting grass or tree (which also have souls and are, thus, alive). It’s like smashing a rock, etc.

You might think that now. You cannot prove it unless you actually butchered a human being already, which I hope you didn’t. Also, careful with what you proclaim ; as it currently stands, your statements do sound a lot like from a psychopath or Sociopath. I really don’t want offend you, but…there are at least hints of it in your sentences. Your ‘Religion’ probably doesn’t help either to make it sound less extreme.

[Belteshazzar]

[quote=“Dlightfull, post:13, topic:10141”]For me, human beings are worse than animals, since animals live in harmony with Nature, while human beings (admittedly not all of them) are destroying her (Nature i mean, or Earth, which is the same, basically, in the context i wrote and it’s ‘her’ because Earth has a soul and because Earth is our spiritual mother and Sun is our spiritual father, at least that’s what i believe).

For me, butchering a corpse, be it animal or human, is just like tilling soil. It’s even less problematic than cutting grass or tree (which also have souls and are, thus, alive). It’s like smashing a rock, etc.[/quote]

Yeah da’s some real great bullshit n’ all, but you miiight just be a sociopath with a glossy spiritual veneer… or an edgy teen pretending to be so.

Species that naturally butcher or kill their own without remorse tend to be highly asocial like spiders, snakes or certain sharks… shit with pretty simple brains and predatory behaviors. Humans, being highly social mammals are pretty well hardwired to go through a great deal of stress after killing or mutilating other humans, keeps us from clearing out all of our competition, which logically consists only of other humans at this point. Good decision for the individual, not so much for the species, so it’s a trait with poor species-wide selection.

Soldiers are even intentionally trained trained against trauma and they still end up with a ridiculously high suicide rate (part of the reason why dehumanizing one’s enemy, or entering an altered state of consciousness/identity is almost universally identified as coping methods of successful tribal warfare.)

Furthermore… zombies in our setting still probably have souls of some sort. They’re quite alive, just not human anymore. Zombie corpses arn’t even dead, they just have been temporarily immobilized while the symbiotic blob enforces repairs. If anything by your internal logic your now murdering members of species which has successfully returned mankind to ‘harmony’.

[Litppunk]

Oh well said.

[Nickal]

I’ve thought about things such as killing people I know and such. I’ve thought about the lives id be ending, what they would miss, their loved ones, etc. I can honestly say, I would not care. In such a cataclysm, your life, put in my hands, would depend solely on your usefulness to me. If you show me no reason for you to live, then you will be more useful as food. Does that make me a Sociopath? Probably, within the study of psychology placing little value on human life is a sign of a sociopath/psychopath. I do believe that everyone has their right to their own opinion, and we aren’t in an actual cataclysm. Anyway I guess my build in-game should include the psychopath trait sooo… yeah.

[Litppunk]

as said before its much easier to stand around and say yes, or no I would have a problem in this situation. ACTUALLY being in the situation is really the only way to tell with these things however. In addition to this, there is a difference between making a calculated decision to kill a person, and just up and killing people because you have no use for them and their are no longer any laws that say you can’t.

To put this in more perspective, I have cut on dead animals in person, with little problem. But show me a video of a person having knee surgery and I am liable to get dizzy, pale, nauseous, and possibly hurl if I can’t get away from it. Our minds are bizarre and react in ways that can be totally illogical and unpredictable.

[Dlightfull]

[quote=“someguy, post:16, topic:10141”][quote=“Dlightfull, post:13, topic:10141”]For me, human beings are worse than animals, since animals live in harmony with Nature, while human beings (admittedly not all of them) are destroying her (Nature i mean, or Earth, which is the same, basically, in the context i wrote and it’s ‘her’ because Earth has a soul and because Earth is our spiritual mother and Sun is our spiritual father, at least that’s what i believe).[/quote]Animals don’t live in harmony. They consume every resource available to them, which leads to excess population dying off. You’re confusing an at best temporary equilibrium with some mythical concept of balance.

Not to say I don’t think we shouldn’t manage our use of resources to better preserve our environment, but we’re practically unique in our ability to do that.

There’s no such thing as harmony in nature, if there were nothing would evolve.[/quote]

I don’t believe in evolution, sorry. I do believe there is harmony. We, humans, destroyed the existing balance, that’s why today we might have the impression that animals consume all the resources available to them. But before we destroyed the balance, they lived in harmony.

[quote=“Litppunk, post:22, topic:10141”]as said before its much easier to stand around and say yes, or no I would have a problem in this situation. ACTUALLY being in the situation is really the only way to tell with these things however. In addition to this, there is a difference between making a calculated decision to kill a person, and just up and killing people because you have no use for them and their are no longer any laws that say you can’t.

To put this in more perspective, I have cut on dead animals in person, with little problem. But show me a video of a person having knee surgery and I am liable to get dizzy, pale, nauseous, and possibly hurl if I can’t get away from it. Our minds are bizarre and react in ways that can be totally illogical and unpredictable.[/quote]

To answer this and some other replies. I have never killed/butchered a human. I did kill/butcher animals though. I can watch videos of killings and blood and stuff like that with no emotion whatsoever, be it animal or human, it’s just a video to me and it’s about an already dead person.

I don’t know, perhaps a specialist would find i’m a sociopath/psychopat, but i do live in society, in a “civilized” country, i interact with modern people and i’m quite good/effective at that.

Belteshazzar, i said i could only butcher, killing living animals/people is traumatic to me. I am not a teenager, i am 30. I don’t like/feel the need to boast or wave my e-peen or something like that, since i couldn’t care less about what other people think about me. I also wrote before that i play this game thinking that zombies are soulless, that’s how i perceive it, no amount of lore is going to change that.

But it’s not really about me, the point is that the current morale penalties are not really realistic, since they do not account for such people like me or Nickal. Yes, i could pick the psychopath trait to change that, but i really don’t think i am a psychopath, i just have different views than the mainstream (does that make me a psychopath?).

[Kadian]

I don’t believe in evolution, sorry. I do believe there is harmony. We, humans, destroyed the existing balance, that’s why today we might have the impression that animals consume all the resources available to them. But before we destroyed the balance, they lived in harmony.

You don’t believe in evolution? Well, you just threw one of the most important biological theory out of the window, even though it’s backed up by literally tons of science, it’s even >proven< in labs, we saw things evolve with our own eyes. Now you start sounding like one of the Creationist Christian Nutcases out there, like Kent Hovind…
I could tell you now that, in the past, there were different animals, which ended becoming extinct due to other animals, i can tell you that this actually happens on a daily basis, even without the interference from human kind, but whats the point? You’d just say I’m wrong, or that I don’t have any proof. That’s one of the reasons why I didn’t want to discuss religion.

[quote=“Dlightfull, post:23, topic:10141”]To answer this and some other replies. I have never killed/butchered a human. I did kill/butcher animals though. I can watch videos of killings and blood and stuff like that with no emotion whatsoever, be it animal or human, it’s just a video to me and it’s about an already dead person.

I don’t know, perhaps a specialist would find i’m a sociopath/psychopat, but i do live in society, in a “civilized” country, i interact with modern people and i’m quite good/effective at that.

Belteshazzar, i said i could only butcher, killing living animals/people is traumatic to me. I am not a teenager, i am 30. I don’t like/feel the need to boast or wave my e-peen or something like that, since i couldn’t care less about what other people think about me. I also wrote before that i play this game thinking that zombies are soulless, that’s how i perceive it, no amount of lore is going to change that.

But it’s not really about me, the point is that the current morale penalties are not really realistic, since they do not account for such people like me or Nickal. Yes, i could pick the psychopath trait to change that, but i really don’t think i am a psychopath, i just have different views than the mainstream (does that make me a psychopath?).[/quote]

1. Sociopaths can interact with other people. Hell, they are quite liked most often, that doesn’t change the fact that they’re sociopaths. In fact, most people find sociopaths very charming at first. so, you telling us that youre ‘efficient’ with other humans does fit the bill.

2. You might not want to play games when you can’t accept the LORE of the game. Especially when the game itself is supposed to be a (roguelike) roleplaying/survival game. The Lore is one of the more important parts of these kind of games and you throw it out of the window. As it stands now, you’re playing CDDA basically as a glorified shooter game, zombies, triffids and everything else are just enemies which you need to kill, ignoring all the interesting background story. Just lovely.

3. Are you a sociopath? Well, one more common description would be the following:

A sociopath can be defined as a person who has Antisocial Personality Disorder. This disorder is characterized by a disregard for the feelings of others, a lack of remorse or shame, manipulative behavior, unchecked egocentricity, and the ability to lie in order to achieve one's goals. Sociopaths can be dangerous at worst or simply very difficult to deal with[...]

Disregard of feeling for others? Check.
Lack of remorse or shame? Check.
Manipulative behaviour? Unsure.
Unchecked Egocentricity? Unsure, but tendency to yes.
Ability to lie in order to achieve goals? Unsure.

So, thats, let’s say, halfway to a confirmed sociopath. We can’t really check the rest because we don’t know you personally, but at least I’m somewhat convinced you’re one.
Or maybe you are some kind of weird religious fanatic, which isn’t much better, to be honest. Choose your poison