Values and Honesty

While writing my essay on The Great Gatsby, I was reminded of a silly game I used to play - EVE Online.

In this space-based MMORPG, one could fly around to distance solar system via jumpgates.  In low security systems, you could even put your nifty ship to the test by blowing up other people without the repercussions of space police cracking your shins with a nightstick.

So, because all my friends and I agreed it was way more fun than mining space rocks for minerals, we decided to "camp" these jump-gates and wait for passing by ships to come through.  Once in spatial proximity, we would subject them to an ultimatum: Give us money or we blow you up.  Simple concept, right?  Well for some people in my group, it was just easier to destroy anything we could and loot the wreckage for valuable components.  For some reason I didn't find that as fun.  It removed the communication element out of it.  I wanted to feel like a real pirate!  "ARRR -- ye best be payin' the toll or else face the agony of my modal neutron cannons loaded with sufficiently catastrophic antimatter rounds."  Whatever the hell that means.

It was fun, though!  And yes, this is leading somewhere.  But let's face it -- I will waste your time either way.

Anyway, I remember one particular person cruising through who managed to warp away before I could target and engage him with my disruptor.  In this situation, he did not get past me --  he merely returned to a safe area within the star system.  I was still blocking the only jump-gate to safe space.  Comfortable with my position of power, I did not feel compelled to chase him.  Though armed to the teeth, battleships don't move quickly enough to be effective in this manner.

So we talked.  In the course of the conversation he challenged my "line of work" as being dishonest.  He even called me dishonest.  So I told him I'd let him pass for 100 isk -- the interstellar equivalent of pocket lint.  He didn't believe me at first, but he paid and I let him pass just to prove a point: dishonest work doesn't automatically make you a dishonest person.

Well I suppose it does make you a dishonest person on some level.  As human beings in a social construct, we're now forced into this unwritten contract -- we're not supposed to go over to our neighbor's house, club him on the head, and steal his wife, etc.  Otherwise we would be expecting the same thing to happen to us and we would live in a perpetual state of defense.  We wouldn't accomplish shit.

But maybe that's what the point of police-free space is (back to video games).  You enter at your own risk.  There is no idea of a social contract to protect you.  It's a simulation of every man for himself.  This idea of lawless space is much like international waters.  We really can't do anything to police it so there is no general system of values governing it.  That being said, what would you expect if you came across someone in this situation?  I suppose the first reaction is to mistrust everyone because they're probably thinking the same thing.  If that is our natural inclination - mistrusting - it would be awesome to see a world where everyone trusts one another like family.  Although, some families don't even have bonds of trust.  Sad :(

I think I value trust immensely.  A lot.  A ton.  A mega ultra fuck-ton, even.  It means the world to me when someone confides in me with something personal.  And I try to reciprocate and honor that bond.  It's a beautifully rewarding feeling.

See?  This really wasn't just an aimless post about EVE Online.  I sucked balls at that game anyway -- I got duped and blown up more times than I can count.  Stupid, trusting self.