Erin Tarn cannot be trusted, she is a danger to humanity

[eliakon]

1) It does not matter if they view them as people or not. Otherwise we get into the slippery slope argument of "well if I don't think they are people then its not genocide" which gets us back to the "genocide is impossible because we have defined it away"

Genocide has been used in popular media to refer to non-humans: http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/eep/news/endspecies.html

so we could avoid the 'what is people' thing altogether. Even if that was an original component, its use seems to have broadened since then. Betting the CWC doesn't care, and they're better than the UN.

None of which has any relevance to arguing that you can not simply get out of the claim of genocide by simply claiming that your target doesn't fall under the heading

by the Rome Statute the actions of the CS in regards to the Dog Boys are genocide (they forcibly relocate children, force breeding, force sterilization, forbid on pain of death the development/ continuance of an individual culture, and exterminate wild/escaped Dog boys

In 1943 when Raphael Lemkin coined the term 'genocide' to mean "deliberate extermination of a people" I don't think the mere act of relocating children would qualify as it, unless you were relocating them into a gas chamber.

The relocation of children with the intent to alter the culture IS genocide (example would be the US American Indian School program)

Forced breeding is like... the opposite of genocide. Are we committing genocide against pandas by coercing them to breed in captivity to prevent their extinction?

Okay, so we can remove the forced breeding (which technically is simply a Crime Against Humanity)

I don't think exterminating wild/escaped qualifies since you're not trying to exterminate a people, just subjugate them.

Again 1) what you think doesn't matter if it contradicts the definition and 2) yes it is genocide if its being used for a genocidal purpose (in this case the deliberate destruction of free dogboy society)

Forbidding continuance/development of culture is more of a gray area. I think there is a difference between exterminating a people and exterminating their culture. I guess it depends on whether you think a person dies if you change significant things about them.

It doesn't matter if you don't like the definition. The definition says that it is genocide to exterminate a culture (this is why you can have genocide on earth and still not wipe out all humans)

Like for example... if I kidnapped all humans and put their brains in full conversion cyborg bodies, is that a genocide? I haven't killed them, but I've signifigantly changed things about them.

Yes, that is genocide. You have exterminated the species as it was

Did Mephisto commit genocide against humans when he made them forget Spider-Man was Peter Parker? After all, he's prevented the continuance of the culture of knowing who Spider-Man is.

No, a single person is not normally the defition of a culture. Though I would like to point out that this 'example' is getting pretty close to the point of being a strawman. Its an extremely exotic, extreme example(erasing the memory of spider man) that is twisted to fit (spider man is defined as the culture) and then that is shown to be some how disproving the rule being argued (that exterminating cultures is genocide)

Seems slippery to define the wiping out or spread of knowledge of genocide. It's oppressive and all that, but it's not murder.

Its not slippery at all. Its pretty simple. If you are deliberately trying to wipe out a culture its genocide. That genocide can be done by murder or through other means.

If forbidding the continuance/development of a culture is genocide then we could say the CS is genocidal against humanity be forbidding the C/D of literacy among the majority of its populace, and it seems odd to think of the CS as being in a genocide against humans. Books don't really fit a "geno-" type.

The CS is genocidal against all other cultures but their own, yes.

I could see how forced sterilization could qualify as it's kind of an indirect/delayed extermination. But I could only see that if it was done against the majority of them.

Again if it is used to destroy a culture its genocide.

I don't think the CS necessarily sterilizes ALL their psi-hounds, does it? They do grow them in tubes but I had thought they had traditional births as well, meaning that some remain fertile. Not sure what portion. Otherwise we would not have those bits about being separated from parents.

I am not sure if this is said in the book. However it does seem that being vat grown is the norm.

[Borast]

Tor - I agree with eliakon - forcibly making everyone full conversion 'borgs would be such, as humans would no longer be able to procreate. You may have created a NEW species (especially if you also had the tech to allow the brains to create new brains), but you committed genocide to do so.

Also, destroying a CULTURE is also included in the Genocide definition, however, only if done deliberately. If another culture absorbs a culture and the absorbed culture vanishes off the face of the earth forever, that is not. It is forcible destruction of that culture that counts. (Technically, this also includes forcible religious conversion and persecution of backsliders.)

Also, the restriction of literacy in the Coalition is not Genocide. It is a reversion to an earlier culture.
Generally speaking, literacy is not required for a culture to be successful. If you've ever had a paper jam in a high-end desktop printer, you see an example of a high-tec society not needing literacy. In addition to the text describing the problem, there is also a little applet showing a moving diagram of what/where the problem is and the steps to fix it. Besides, if loosing a skillset was classified as Genocide, the educational systems in the Western World TODAY would be guilty...they have stopped teaching cursive writing, and (in some areas); the teaching of the logical process behind math...in other words, they are letting kids do all the work on calculators instead of puzzling it out themselves.

Oh, eliakon; I was under the impression that vat-grown was also a large part of the process, but that there were a large number of pregnant and nursing females in and around the crèche. (And given that the average dog has a litter...Dog Boys are probably twins and trips when naturally born.)

[eliakon]

I will dig out my copy of Lone Star and read up closely on the Dog Boys birth methods. However to be totally honest its highly irrelevant. Once you meet the definition of Genocide in one area of your doings, then it doesn't really matter if all the other areas are, in and of themselves, genocidal. You are now actively engaged in genocide, and any actions that you take that are in direct support of that goal, no matter what those actions are therefore by definition also genocidal.

Or put another way. Once you have crossed the Moral Event Horizon you cant uncross it and say, oops well I am not doing bad now.

[Tor]

None of which has any relevance to arguing that you can not simply get out of the claim of genocide by simply claiming that your target doesn't fall under the heading

The heading of 'animal'? I agree that if you define it as hurting persons you can define people as non-persons, but since we have mainstream media use of it against animals (non-human wildlife, whales and such) that's a broader definition.

The CS might not define things like Elementals as Animals but I think they'd be okay doing that with dragons/trolls/etc. Even if it is a non-Earth animal.

The relocation of children with the intent to alter the culture IS genocide (example would be the US American Indian School program)

Not according to the CCW (more enlightened than us). I also wonder if any quotes from the term originator indicate this interpretation.

Did Raphael Lemkin talk about relocating Jewish children as 'genocide', or was he indicating the killing of children as the actual genocide?

Also: you do realize that CPS rescuing children from abusive parents would qualify as genocide under this definition, right? You're intending to altering their culture (taking them away from abuse/poverty) by relocating them.

Same with forcing kids to go to school and having truancy officers pursue them, this is also forcible relocation to alter culture (to introduce education and remove them from the street culture which is dangerous).

so we can remove the forced breeding (which technically is simply a Crime Against Humanity)

According to the UN, I guess. Can't recall what the CS has to say about it. Guessing the CCW would classify it as rape even though it's possible to force breeding without sex (artificial insemination directly through the pelvic wall instead of genitals). One could call creating new beings through theft of genetic materials (whether you are being cloned or having seed stolen) as part of forced breeding. Enforcement tends to be focused 1-sided on behalf of 1 gender though.

1) what you think doesn't matter if it contradicts the definition

There is no 'the definition', please specify "the Rome Statute" so as not to impart your chosen definition with undue authority or prominence.

2) yes it is genocide if its being used for a genocidal purpose (in this case the deliberate destruction of free dogboy society)

The CS do not destroy free dogboy society, they are stated as hiring freeborn dogboys as mercenaries in Lone Star. They only explicitly destroy runaways/escapeds.

Destroying people if they do something bad and break obligations is not genocide. By this reasoning, executing people in the military for desertion is a genocide.

In anticipation of arguments that Dog Boys in the army have no choice since they are forcibly conscripted: so are a lot of humans. Even now the US (paragon of virtue for signing this Rome Statute?) has Selective Service mandates which allow them to re-introduce the draft and conscript males.

It doesn't matter if you don't like the definition. The definition says that it is genocide to exterminate a culture (this is why you can have genocide on earth and still not wipe out all humans)

read: "The Rome Statute definition"

How loosely can we define a culture though?

Is murdering a culture? If so, this would make government executions of murderers genocide. Is firing on police a culture? If so, this would make police defending with lethal force a genocide. Is being an unwanted child a culture? If so, this would make abortions a genocide.

If not, why not? What are the requirements?

Yes, that is genocide. You have exterminated the species as it was

The species survives, it is just changed. If changing a species is a genocide then evolution is genocide. I guess Sea Titans or Ogres or Amazons reproducing with humans is also genocidal in nature.

If changing people to full conversion borgs is genocide, what about smaller degrees of change? If I chop off the right arm of every human and replace it with a bionic limb, is that genocide?

If I enslave a species, I change their culture, that is genocide?

If I defeat a species (even in self defense) I also change their culture, that should also be genocide, right?

If I am defeated by an invading species, I could also change their culture, that's also genocide.

I would like to point out that this 'example' is getting pretty close to the point of being a strawman. Its an extremely exotic, extreme example(erasing the memory of spider man) that is twisted to fit (spider man is defined as the culture) and then that is shown to be some how disproving the rule being argued (that exterminating cultures is genocide)

Spider-Man is not a culture, but a city of New Yorkers and people around the world knowing who Peter Parker is, is certainly part of culture.

I am pointing out that there is a line between "exterminating" a culture and simply "changing" it. Changing people into full conversion borgs changes the culture heavily, but it doesn't exterminate it.

100% exterminating a culture is very difficult, and even in the case of moving native children around, putting them in English schools, you do not actually annihilate it. Rather you heavily compromise the passing on of preceding home-born beliefs and emphasize the passing on of newly imported ones. That could be a 5/95 split in the end but it is not extermination. More like... desaturation... watering down, etc.

Its not slippery at all. Its pretty simple. If you are deliberately trying to wipe out a culture its genocide. That genocide can be done by murder or through other means.

Trying to wipe out a culture is genocidAL but I don't think it would qualify as a genocide unless you succeeded in doing so (or at least a significant amount of damage, like the 1% req CCW puts on it).

Otherwise, if 'trying' was enough, then if some guy says "I am going to kill all the dolphins on earth" but the police manage to stop him before he bombs one living at Marine Land, the guy was genocidal, but the mere attempt at genocide was not actually a genocide.

The CS is genocidal against all other cultures but their own, yes.

Source?

Is it genocidal against the NGR?

Again if it is used to destroy a culture its genocide.

I think we are stomping on the "gene" biological root of the word by shifting away from a familial ethnic group and changing into a cultural one.

I understand the value doing this in some respects, but considering how "culture" is a pretty inclusive label, it risks making pretty much any aggression a genocide.

IE it is now a genocide if I kill all the rogue scholars, even though the scholarship they engage in can be widely different.

it does seem that being vat grown is the norm.

Lone Star 24 says that only 1/10 of them are tube-grown, as natural birth is more cost-effective.

This also led me to notice a discrepency:

(page 24) Feral young are also destroyed for fear of anti-social (anti-Coalition) contamination. Only those under a year and a half old may be spared, taken into custody and placed into "The Program."

(page 39) The Coalition military never accepts never accepts feral renegades or their offspring into their ranks. Only infants under the age of 16 weeks may be considered for adoption into the Dog Boy Corps.

Not sure how to resolve this... a year and a half would be 78 weeks (52+26).

Could "The Program" refer to something different from the Coalition military's Dog Boy Corps?

Perhaps feral renegades' offspring/young over 16 weeks (and under 78) but instead of putting them in the military/Corps they use them for other lower-security/risk roles?

forcibly making everyone full conversion 'borgs would be such, as humans would no longer be able to procreate.

Untrue, you could store their sperm/eggs in cryo-stasis prior to converting them to do a later tube-growth, or clone them from the remaining cells in their spine/brain.

Also: this could be done to an already infertile species, effectively losing nothing.

*wonders if you can turn Zavor into borgs using iron scalpels and stuff*

destroying a CULTURE is also included in the Genocide definition, however, only if done deliberately. If another culture absorbs a culture and the absorbed culture vanishes off the face of the earth forever, that is not.

Still a lot of grey area, like whether merging or naturalizing is 'destroying' a culture or merely adding to it.

If the CS decided to kill all chess players, all people who knew the rules of chess, destroy all rules of chess, then since they are trying to destroy chess culture, this is genocide? Seems needlessly broad to me. What would Lemkin think of this? Does he consider 'chess players' a "geno" a "people" in the same way he does the Jews?

the restriction of literacy in the Coalition is not Genocide. It is a reversion to an earlier culture

Er... wouldn't that mean that if Jews wiped out Muslims or if Catholics wiped out Mormons or if Aztec wiped out Scientologists that it wouldn't be a genocide because they're an earlier culture?

if loosing a skillset was classified as Genocide, the educational systems in the Western World TODAY would be guilty...they have stopped teaching cursive writing, and (in some areas); the teaching of the logical process behind math...in other words, they are letting kids do all the work on calculators instead of puzzling it out themselves.

[/quote]
I agree. I think the key here is that there's a difference between not helping to spread a culture and trying to annihilate it.

Taking something out of the curriculum of your mandatory schooling isn't exactly wiping something out, although you are taking up time and resources that might compete for the spreading of those things you are not endorsing.

[Borast]

the restriction of literacy in the Coalition is not Genocide. It is a reversion to an earlier culture

Er... wouldn't that mean that if Jews wiped out Muslims or if Catholics wiped out Mormons or if Aztec wiped out Scientologists that it wouldn't be a genocide because they're an earlier culture?

No. the loss of Universal Literacy is not Genocide.
Killing off an entire religion is, since a religion is considered a culture, at the least, part of a culture, at the most it is a culture.
If a Religion (or Culture) vanishes through natural processes (i.e.: volcano eradicates the entirety of a people), or gradual acculturation (where people leave their "native" culture for a new one) it is not Genocide. Forcibly doing so (such as the US and Canadian Residential Schools tried to do) is Genocide. Doesn't matter if the force is from a bullet or an indoctrination centre (the schools).

[Tor]

Why is religion a culture but literacy is not? Keeping in mind that by killing off literacy the CS does effectively kill off many cultures which are conveyed via literacy, including many religions which center around religious texts.

Animals and sentient beings are natural processes like volcanos.

How slowly does something have to be for acculturation to be gradual?

How do you weigh people voluntarily leaving vs the elements of coercion to leave by power imbalances?

The CS treatment of Dog Boys has not been referred to as genocidal anywhere I've seen in Rifts, so I don't think Palladium Books accepts this silly UN definition. Instead we do see it used to desribe what the Sunaj are doing to True Atlanteans. Not sure where else, wish I could do a word search of a digital copy of my books.

When the term genocide was coined it was to describe what the Nazis did to the Jews, I think we should keep it in that context of "I'm rounding up your people and killing them". Broadening it to include just indoctrination or relocation without the attempt to wipe out the victim is insulting to the people this happened to.

I did find something potentially self-defeating just now though. In the online description of CWC it says "Emperor Prosek is ready to launch a surprise military campaign of conquest and genocide!"

I don't know if this statement has an equivalent in the book itself or the canonicity of online summaries, but I'm probably willing in this to bow to thinking that Karl is in line with Drogue in a willingness, a preparedness at doing a genocide as an aspect of their war campaign. Although the context (against which race? which culture?) seems vague here.

Still, while leaders are both "ready" to do genocide, I'm not clear if that means that genocides were actually enacted in the Coalition Wars (Siege on Tolkeen) or any other aspects of their War Campaign. They might well have been "ready" to do it (much like the US is "ready" to engage in mass nuclear warfare against enemy nations, which would probably result in genocidal destruction) but decided that it wasn't necessary to win.

The online summary of Coalition Overkill says "A new breed of Coalition Officers begin to come to the forefront, and with them cruelty, murder and genocide."

I think we can take that as a reference to Drogue (is anyone else mentioned in association with genocide in this book?) and that genocide comes to the forefront with him, since he is bringing its instruments (concentration camps).

I don't know if that necessarily means genocides happened, or that the camps were actually built. It may merely mean that the concept/issue of genocide is brought to the forefront as Drogue prepares it as an option (a "final solution") in line with Karl's (perhaps begrudging?) willingness to do whatever it takes to secure the safety of Humanity.

Another thing that can possibly allow us to draw conclusions on what genocide is, is in sourcebook 2. The Mechanoids are described as genocidal, and they clearly want to just kill-all-humans. It fits the definition I'm talking about. Have we seen the term used for beings who simply want to control us or change our culture? The Splugorth? Vampires? Even Nxla? I'm betting we saw it for the 4 Horsemen because like the Mechanoids they want us dead, but I don't recall seeing it for all these other evil forces who want to do stuff way worse to us than what Americans/Canadians did to the natives.

In contrast to the Mechanoids:

Hagan, on the other hand, is human and has no desire to participate in the genocide of humankind. He may be evil and selfish but he has no desire to assist in the [b]extermination of his race[b].

Exterminating a race: that's what genocide is painted as, very early in Palladium.

Just prior to this, Hagan is described as wanted to rule the world. Ruling the world generally involves altering other's cultures. So we know he is explicitly not genocidal and explicitly wants to rule the world. He's Diabolic, but he cherishes life (I bet Karl is the same way).

If Karl and Drogue are willing to do genocidal things in the course of war, perhaps as a last resort to save humanity if they are losing, then I'm not sure that means they are still of genocidal attitudes overall. The CS releasing some kind of Daemonix-killing plaque that will wipe them out could qualify as a genocide, but the CS may be genocidal enough to do something like that if they were winning and didn't need to.

[eliakon]

None of which has any relevance to arguing that you can not simply get out of the claim of genocide by simply claiming that your target doesn't fall under the heading

The heading of 'animal'? I agree that if you define it as hurting persons you can define people as non-persons, but since we have mainstream media use of it against animals (non-human wildlife, whales and such) that's a broader definition.

The CS might not define things like Elementals as Animals but I think they'd be okay doing that with dragons/trolls/etc. Even if it is a non-Earth animal.

I stand by may claim that this is at best an attempt to side track the debate with a non-issue.
One can not simply say that they feel that their definition of a group is that they not real people and then say its not genocide

The relocation of children with the intent to alter the culture IS genocide (example would be the US American Indian School program)

Not according to the CCW (more enlightened than us). I also wonder if any quotes from the term originator indicate this interpretation.

1) I need a source proving that the CCW is more enlightened than us and
2) I am going of the real world definition of the word here not a (potentially) partial definition from a book. Especially since all we know from that is that some things that DO count as genocide not that it is exclusively that.

Did Raphael Lemkin talk about relocating Jewish children as 'genocide', or was he indicating the killing of children as the actual genocide?

This is again, at best irrelivent. The definition I have provided of genocide says that this is genocide. You are welcome to provide a counter definition if you want.

Also: you do realize that CPS rescuing children from abusive parents would qualify as genocide under this definition, right? You're intending to altering their culture (taking them away from abuse/poverty) by relocating them.

Poverty and abuse are not cultures.

Same with forcing kids to go to school and having truancy officers pursue them, this is also forcible relocation to alter culture (to introduce education and remove them from the street culture which is dangerous).

Again this is a false claim where you attempt to prove that by beating up a strawman (ignorance is a culture) that the definition is bad.

so we can remove the forced breeding (which technically is simply a Crime Against Humanity)

According to the UN, I guess. Can't recall what the CS has to say about it. Guessing the CCW would classify it as rape even though it's possible to force breeding without sex (artificial insemination directly through the pelvic wall instead of genitals). One could call creating new beings through theft of genetic materials (whether you are being cloned or having seed stolen) as part of forced breeding. Enforcement tends to be focused 1-sided on behalf of 1 gender though.

Yes, its (mass) rape

1) what you think doesn't matter if it contradicts the definition

There is no 'the definition', please specify "the Rome Statute" so as not to impart your chosen definition with undue authority or prominence.

You have not provided any other definition. Thus it is the only definition that has been proffered in this debate. As such it has a presumptive value.

2) yes it is genocide if its being used for a genocidal purpose (in this case the deliberate destruction of free dogboy society)

The CS do not destroy free dogboy society, they are stated as hiring freeborn dogboys as mercenaries in Lone Star. They only explicitly destroy runaways/escapeds.
Destroying people if they do something bad and break obligations is not genocide. By this reasoning, executing people in the military for desertion is a genocide.

Slavery is not an obligation. This is another false analogy (forced compliance via coercion is not the same as the expectation of free uncoreced decision).

In anticipation of arguments that Dog Boys in the army have no choice since they are forcibly conscripted: so are a lot of humans. Even now the US (paragon of virtue for signing this Rome Statute?) has Selective Service mandates which allow them to re-introduce the draft and conscript males.

Again we are making false comparisons.
Draft and Slavery are not genocide and have not been equated as such except by you. It is only genocide when the slavery is intended to destroy a culture. THAT act, the destruction of the culture is genocide. If the US only drafted Scientologests and then prohibited them from practicing their religion while in the military, then it would be military genocide.

It doesn't matter if you don't like the definition. The definition says that it is genocide to exterminate a culture (this is why you can have genocide on earth and still not wipe out all humans)

read: "The Rome Statute definition"

Until you offer a counter definition of genocide, then it stands as the definition. And I would like to note that the part that you have cut out is pointing out that you can not escape the claim of genocide by simply defining the act away.

How loosely can we define a culture though?

Your welcome to propose a definition of culture if you would like one.
I would propose this though

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture

Is murdering a culture? If so, this would make government executions of murderers genocide. Is firing on police a culture? If so, this would make police defending with lethal force a genocide. Is being an unwanted child a culture? If so, this would make abortions a genocide.

I would say that no, murder is not a culture nor is firing on police. They are specific acts that individuals do. The acts themselves do not have any cultural significance, nor are they transmitted from one generation to the next as part of a deliberate pattern of social education.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CultureIf not, why not? What are the requirements?[/quote]

The acts themselves do not have any cultural significance, nor are they transmitted from one generation to the next as part of a deliberate pattern of social education. If any act whatsoever can be defined as a culture then we have defined culture as 'any thing that any person anywhere does' this means that ANY DELEBERATE ACT AT ALL is an attempt to change cultures and thus genocide. Since this is obviously not a tenable definition (it makes the very word 'genocide' have no meaning at all) I would say that it should be rejected as being self obviously false.

Yes, that is genocide. You have exterminated the species as it was

The species survives, it is just changed. If changing a species is a genocide then evolution is genocide. I guess Sea Titans or Ogres or Amazons reproducing with humans is also genocidal in nature.

Again your are making false claims. The part that you have erased (capturing the entire race, and removing everything but their brains) is genocide. The species has NOT survived. They need artificial means to artificially create new members.

If changing people to full conversion borgs is genocide, what about smaller degrees of change? If I chop off the right arm of every human and replace it with a bionic limb, is that genocide?

Actually in rifts yes that is genocidal since you are destroying all cultures based on magic, harmony with nature, etc.

If I enslave a species, I change their culture, that is genocide?

Yes

If I defeat a species (even in self defense) I also change their culture, that should also be genocide, right?

If in the process you
1) kill more than 1% of them
2) you destroy their culture
then yes you have committed genocide (it may be genocide in self defense, but its still genocide)

If I am defeated by an invading species, I could also change their culture, that's also genocide.

If you deliberately alter their culture then yes, you are committing genocide

I would like to point out that this 'example' is getting pretty close to the point of being a strawman. Its an extremely exotic, extreme example(erasing the memory of spider man) that is twisted to fit (spider man is defined as the culture) and then that is shown to be some how disproving the rule being argued (that exterminating cultures is genocide)

Spider-Man is not a culture, but a city of New Yorkers and people around the world knowing who Peter Parker is, is certainly part of culture.

There is a difference between claiming that knowing who a person is as the definition of their culture, and claiming that it is one part of their culture. If we go with the 'any memory at all is a valid definition of culture' we are back to the 'there is no such thing as genocide since all actions fit it' I reject any and all attempts to semantically 'prove' that genocide does not, and indeed can not, exist.

I am pointing out that there is a line between "exterminating" a culture and simply "changing" it. Changing people into full conversion borgs changes the culture heavily, but it doesn't exterminate it.

There is no possible way for the Native American Traditionalist culture to exist if they are borgs. Ergo, turning them into borgs is genocidal to their culture.
There is no possible way for any of the magical societies to exist if they are borgs. Thus again you have elimitated their culture.

100% exterminating a culture is very difficult, and even in the case of moving native children around, putting them in English schools, you do not actually annihilate it. Rather you heavily compromise the passing on of preceding home-born beliefs and emphasize the passing on of newly imported ones. That could be a 5/95 split in the end but it is not extermination. More like... desaturation... watering down, etc.

You do not have to achieve the destruction. You have to make the attempt at the destruction.
The Nazi Holocaust was genocide. It did not eliminate the Jewish culture, that failure though does not make it any less genocidal.

Its not slippery at all. Its pretty simple. If you are deliberately trying to wipe out a culture its genocide. That genocide can be done by murder or through other means.

Trying to wipe out a culture is genocidAL but I don't think it would qualify as a genocide unless you succeeded in doing so (or at least a significant amount of damage, like the 1% req CCW puts on it).

Since the question here was 'is the CS Genocidal' its rather moot then isn't it? They are explicitly genocidal.

Otherwise, if 'trying' was enough, then if some guy says "I am going to kill all the dolphins on earth" but the police manage to stop him before he bombs one living at Marine Land, the guy was genocidal, but the mere attempt at genocide was not actually a genocide.

I am saying that actualized intent is genocide. Simply desiring to do something is not, but when you start on the path and take actions to carry out the plan then you have committed genocide.

The CS is genocidal against all other cultures but their own, yes.

Source?

Is it genocidal against the NGR?

*sigh* Fine, the CS is genocidal against all non-human cultures, all cultures that embrace or accept magic. They explicitly belive that all magic users are inherently evil and should be killed or removed from the earth. This is pretty much the text book definition of 'genocidal culture' as there are multiple cultures on North America that they explicitly want wiped out (Tolkeen was one)

Again if it is used to destroy a culture its genocide.

I think we are stomping on the "gene" biological root of the word by shifting away from a familial ethnic group and changing into a cultural one.

I think that this is another attempt to change the definition of the word to get around the simple truth. The CS is a genocidal regime, they have committed genocide, and they wish to do so again.

I understand the value doing this in some respects, but considering how "culture" is a pretty inclusive label, it risks making pretty much any aggression a genocide.

I don't think its very vauge at all.
Unless of course we make some rather logically unsupportable definitions of culture

IE it is now a genocide if I kill all the rogue scholars, even though the scholarship they engage in can be widely different.

Except that this claim is false. This is however a good example of making a wild, unsupported claim and then using it to try and prove the argument is false....Strawman.

the restriction of literacy in the Coalition is not Genocide. It is a reversion to an earlier culture

Er... wouldn't that mean that if Jews wiped out Muslims or if Catholics wiped out Mormons or if Aztec wiped out Scientologists that it wouldn't be a genocide because they're an earlier culture?

wiping out a religion is pretty much the definition of exterminating a culture.



In conclusion if this is going to descend to a specious series of strawmen and attempts to semantically argue that genocide is not actually possible then I think that all constructive discussion will have passed.

[Jefffar]

What is and isn't genocide has been debated for decades and is a worthy topic ... in an appropriate forum for such.

At this point the thread has wandered well off topic and is generating plenty of heat and precious little light. Topic closed.