Pending Further Investigation

Graham and I have decided to re-sub our World of Warcraft account (I'll pause to allow those of you who didn't know I play WOW to regain your composure.... are you done laughing at me? Ok... I'll continue). When we lived in California we played WOW every Wednesday night with a group of friends from all over. Seeeeeeee, it's social, and therefore completely acceptable.

So I am typing in my user name and password to recover my account info and it's all "invalid information" and I'm all "noooo it isn't, idiot computer". And it went on like this for some time until I decided to call the service help-line (mostly because, since I tried logging on so many times with "invalid information" it locked me out of the site. Computer, 1. Me, 0.)

Then, forty-five minutes later: FORTY-FIVE MINUTES, PEOPLE... this just proves how many people play MMO's. Seeeeeeee, it's pervasive, and therefore completely acceptable. Forty-five minutes later a woman is explaining to me that my account has been hacked in to and, pending further investigation, may or may not be reopened.

All of this to say that, for the first time in my life, I am a part of an INVESTIGATION. It's like a murder mystery... only ONLINE. There has been a scandal in Outland, folks... someone has killed my Druid. YOUR CHILDREN ARE NOT SAFE!

Bok, Bok, Bok...Much Unlike a Chicken

Sissela Bok is, in my opinion, one of the most brilliant ethicists of the modern age. Her idea, the Principle of Veracity, states that the truth is always preferable to a lie. Very Kantian, yes...but unlike Kant, Bok's perspective is situational.

The thing about her book, Lying, that I find challenging are her ideas about white lies. The idea that lies are ethical when they "don't hurt anyone" is completely irrelevant because, in truth, we cannot know whether or not our lies (the large and small) damage ourselves or others. "To the extent that we train ourselves to see their (white lies') ramifications and succeed in eliminating them from our speech, the need to resort to them will diminish" (Bok, Lying p.72).

The proverbial butterfly wing flap that causes a hurricane...white lies have consequences just like anything else. It is important in life that we not only do the right thing, but that we know why we are doing the right thing. Ethical systems are important because humans lend themselves so heavily towards justification and because, sometimes, justifying wrongness can be all too easy.

Consider this your permission to say to me "That haircut totally sucks", "I do not think that I will have time to do ______ today", or "Yeah, that dress makes you look like a larger form of mammal than you are".