Manipulation AudioLog

## Transcript

(Spoken by JR) So I wanted to talk today a little bit about--I'm not gonna call it my favourite topic but, Waste or not, I'm still a Mind player--so let's talk a little bit about manipulation. Let's talk about getting people to do the things you want them to do and the ethics of it. I've had this debate uncountable amounts of times--maybe AB would know--but every so often you get into a Yellow Yard and the Time player doesn't want to do anything. And that's their right--their choice--y'know? So I mean I'm not gonna--I'm not gonna influence them that way. I don't, that's the whole point. That's what the Yellow Yard is--is restraint. So I restrain myself even if I think the right thing to do is to go back in time. But, more interestingly, there are Time players who--they're all for it until I give them the list and they look at this list and, especially the Seers, they know exactly what everything means and they realise things are going to go completely different.

Sometime they balk at the weirdest things, like sometimes they don't want to prototype a frog. Y'know, you'd think they pro--they'd balk at--at murdering their friends but they understand the game by that point. We all do at that point. But at the end, when everybody's dead, and they realise "wait, if I do this, these two people are never going to fall in love" or "this person's never going to figure out, like, how to get past their--their childhood trauma" or... And that's when people start balking. When they start going "no, I don't feel like playing god. I don't get to choose. What gives me the right?" and the thing is I don't understand. I know I've been in this shitty game for a long time but I don't get it. If you can save lives, shouldn't you? Just having a conversation with someone quote unquote manipulates them. Shouldn't you do it with--shouldn't you communicate with other people with their interest in mind? With some idea of doing the right thing? Yeah, everyone's seen murder-mode players, y'know, "oh, I'm going to murder you all for your own good" blah blah blah. The grimdarks that want to save us from the game by destroying it. We've all seen that. Obviously the greater good is not necessary and sufficient for ethical action. You can do the wrong things for the right reasons, obviously, but why does doing something small and subtle feel worse than stabbing someone? I don't get that... Then you get the less subtle versions. I mean, you've seen all the various forms of mind control this game gives us access to. The big scary ones--y'know, with the glowing Mind symbol that my Yellow Yards cause--but the point is, the big scary ones with the symbol and the obvious and the... Everything's wrong. Obviously that's manipulation but sometimes you'll see one of the players, usually a Mind player, and they'll just use clever words and convince people to destroy the game, kill their friends, kill the murder-mode player. Like, there's all sorts of things that you can convince people to do and it doesn't just have to be clever words. Y'know, person X tells person Y that person Z killed somebody and boom--you manipulated them. Into trusting them less, trying to kill them, I don't know. It... What does right and wrong even mean in a game like this? Food for thought, I guess. JR out.