COMICS: The Team Takes On The US Government In NEW AVENGERS #22

Why does it look like they are fighting Halo Marine's lol?

Oh and first!

[frick]ing ridiculous. They did this in the AvX previews as well.
STOP TELLING US SOMEONE IS GOING TO DIE!
I know comic book deaths don't mean much anyway nowadays but telling us just makes it worse. It'd be a bit better at least if we were to turn a page and see someone die and be like "shit...".
Secret Avengers is doing it as well!
Gah.
Sigh.

Ok with all the Heroes fighting heroes and now governments fighting heroes they better have some panels with people looting and villains doing villains thisngs, seriously if I'm the mad thinker of kingpin and watching tv I would go all criminal all over they city.

Yup. All been done before. Why do we keep getting retread stories? Simple. Low rent writers and editors. All the good ones (along with many of the artists) don't work in the media any longer because they are either too expensive for the bargain basement payroll the company demands for max profits, or they are in some form of legal battle for rights to their creations. Now we are left with editors calling the shots that spend more time in the boardroom taking orders based on sales statistics put together by some consulting firm and less time in the bullpen working with quality CREATORS.

One of two things will be next based on what was done before. Either it turns out badly for them and they go center their operations from "Avengers Island" to get out of the jurisdiction of any government, or some major threat shows up while they are "on trial" and it soon becomes apparent that they are needed. Seen these before too.

This industry is missing creators like Roy Thomas and Neal Adams and their contemporaries and most importantly non-interference from a front office hell bent on corporate dividends and stock values.

@orpheus - No black and white? I...don't have the energy for this right now. Please reference my discussion with Ror at the link below. Of course there is black and white. Its just hard to figure out which is which. Maybe that's what you mean.

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/rorschachsrants/news/?a=54295#comments

@Wolf - Who says first? Everyone on here...

Dont ruin my moment lol

I love New Avengers!!! Alex says A vs. X is the shizzzzz. Is there a Gay Avenger Role Model for me

Dedato is the best...!!!

@orpheus - Just check out my conversation with Ror in the comments on that link. Of course there are absolutes, because the value of objects and out comes can be objectively determined from applying logic to evidence, and excepting a few base premises. Its just not easy.

When you say "there are no absolutes" is THAT an absolute statement?

@orpheus - and yet...you talk to people about the validity of your position? You have determined the validity of your position via what? Logic? If not logic, what?

Ror asserted that moral issues were gray and subjective. I think I successfully demonstrate that they are not.

Do you really think there is no objective value to anything? That, say, one could assert that a shinny piece of a broken bottle is more valuable than the life of a child, and someone could assert the opposite, and both assertions have equal validity? If so, your world view sucks.

Logic is an extension of math. The universe IS math. How can logic itself be discarded? The framework is sound for making any determination. Only application can be flawed. Conclusions about reality, even moral ones, can only be reached by applying logic to evidence.

Why is my example silly? Just because its not an everyday occurrence? Mass traveling at the speed of light isn't an everyday occurrence, but thinking about it can sure as hell tell us a lot about the universe. My example reveals the problem of relativism. Sociopaths are given just as much credence to their decisions as others. On its face, that is ridiculous. OBVIOUSLY the child is of more value than the glass, or the high a psycho might get off killing her. If not, neither you or anyone else have any footing for passing judgment on anyone, regardless of how obviously horrible their act, nor does an one have any grounds for laying out prescriptive behavior, other than "I don't like that, so don't do it." It's all just about "likes". There's no way to say anyone "ought" to do anything except because you "like" it.

Its insecure to think there is objective value? That truth and beauty really matter, and there value is transcendent of human opinion, as the Greeks might say? That's not derived from insecurity. That's derived from observation. People don't descend into relativist chaos because they don't actually LIVE according to the logical conclusions relativism leads too. We can't live that way because its OBVIOUS that it doesn't make sense. What is your alternative? Go with what you feel like? I'll take the apparent insecurity of believing that objective value exists, but can be hard to discover, that the supreme ARROGANCE displayed in the relativists position that their opinion is as valid as any opinion can be. Besides, it doesn't matter if it seems insecure or arrogant, what matters if its TRUE. So far as I can tell, truth is something you don't even believe in.

Logic is not math. Logic is applied reasoning according to principles of validity, not only can the application of logic is flawed, but the reasoning process is based on the particular memory, preferences, unconscious distortions of the particular person. Math is an entirely different arena. Even Wittgensteinian logic, with which you are confusing with reasoning, is not mathematics and Wittgenstein himself created two completely contradictory means of logic that can't be reconciled. Your "Conclusions about reality, even moral ones, can only be reached by applying logic to evidence" has been shown to be untrue and full of distortions since the time of the Greeks, it would be tedious for me to go over it here because it would fit a book, but if you could find instances in your every day life of it. If the topic interests you look at semiotics, deconstructionism, post structrualism, Jungian psychology, Freudian psychology, Spiral Dynamics, Slavjo Zizek, Heidegger, Nietzsche, ect all have something valuable to say on the subject of the hubris of human's faith in reason.

However, in your arguments, you are making a great deal of false equivalents, conflating definitions and ideas that are separate. Language is slippery, our concepts are only half-formed, and our sensory experience is almost always lacking or incomplete, and it's these things our logical processing is based on. There is a reason people rarely agree, because logic and reasoning are skewed by the perspective of the person applying it and are fundamentally flawed. It's not the case that MassExecution in whereever, USA has special insight into reason and everyone else ought to just get on board. Your pseudo-philosophy is tiring and full of the same mistakes that experts in multiple disciplines that look at human cognition and being-in-the-world. Consensus reality is only consensus, not really reality.

Your example is silly because it doesn't reveal the problem of relativism. I said your position is insecure BECAUSE it there is a belief that without absolute rules, things turn into relativism. That's utter nonsense and trash reasoning. People create values naturally. They need no objective reason. The creation of values is most often spontaneous, emotional and instinctual. Then we artificially construct something with our head and call it 'reason' or 'logic' and try to pretend our natural spontaneity is something objective, absolute, or something everyone should value.

To approach your example about the value of a child, there are two perspectives to take. One is personal - personally, I value a child, there is no justification of it other than my personal valuation based on instinctual recognition of another life and the meaning of a young life. This is not objective, not an absolute, it's personal and natural.

Secondly, even if the same sentiment is shared by the majority of the human species, that makes nothing objective, merely a product of shared concern of a species.
Additionally, the value of a child my be come from a socialization in a given culture.

So, your "It's all just about "likes". There's no way to say anyone "ought" to do anything except because you "like" it." is an incredibly immature position to take. If you didn't have your "reasons", you wouldn't go have sex with this or that, you wouldn't kill or steal because of this or that... in fact, very little or nothing would change about the way you value, except you might be less dependent upon material things or less invested in hierarchy. You have set up a false dichotomy. You are only revealing a weird dependency on rules and externals.

"That truth and beauty really matter, and there value is transcendent of human opinion, as the Greeks might say?"
You clearly don't know what the Greeks say, but to humor you, beauty in Plato's scheme is an ideal form of which we can't even perceive, but he wasn't speaking of objective values, he was communicating how poor human understanding and perception is.

Truth is important, but begs the question "what is true?" What's true depends entirely on perspective. Americans think science and reason are true, in Haiti voudon practitioners believe that they are possessed by ancestral entities called Loa (we think they're ridiculous, they think we are - but we have coffee makers and technology, we must be correct!). "Truth" is an interpretation. We have no direct access to truth.

" People don't descend into relativist chaos because they don't actually LIVE according to the logical conclusions relativism leads too. We can't live that way because its OBVIOUS that it doesn't make sense."

Animals don't care about "sense" or "logic", but you don't see them descending into chaos. Humans lived for thousands of years before "logic" and "sense" was created. People do what preserves them (generally), not because it makes "sense". What is the absolute value of a flower? It's not beauty, I guarantee you you and I would find vast differences in what we perceive to be beautiful.

The point I'm trying to communicate is that WITHOUT ABSOLUTES NOTHING DESCENDS INTO RELATIVISM. Why would it? Life isn't a math equation that could fall out from underneath me into chaos. That's a childish, insecure view. The case that with no absolutes, anything is "valid" betrays that you are thinking in false dichotomy. It's the same thing with Atheists - Christians assume "without God people will murder and steal!" which is obviously not true (i'm not an atheist, by the way).

Before we go any further, don't conflate "Absolutes" with "logic". "Absolutes" are also not equivalent with "objectivity".

It's not that I don't believe in truth, i just think that there is no way for humans to come near perceiving it. It is the constant hubris of human beings to think they really know something.
Perhaps after the technological Singularity when digital intelligence is infinitely expanding into Quantum territory, something will look back and laugh at our belief in "logic" in the same way moderns look back at the Greeks or Aztecs or Hindus or whatever and laugh at their "silly" beliefs.

If your a relativist you KNOW it doesn't matter, because nothing really matters.

I know it doesn't matter, because if you can't see all your verbiage is ridiculous on its face, there's nothing to be done with you.

You ARE using logic and the assumption of absolutes to reach conclusions, that you think are absolute, regarding the lack of absolutes, and the limitations of logic.