(Untitled)

[fireinthehero]

[There's a video feed popping up of a crime in progress - semi-distant footage of a group of trying to loot a store that hasn't yet re-opened after the Halloween mess. One guy keeping watch, others starting to break into the windows.

And then a voice raises up, though still speaking softly, and starts to comment on it.]

Honestly. What makes

Comments

video;

[technophantom]

Heh.

It's so easy for heroes to think they're not part of the problem.

Why crime? Because of wealth. How many heroes live on the streets?

How many live in Avengers' Mansion?

[fireinthehero]

And now you're oversimplifying.

Problems like this, money and other worries, bad circumstances, they contribute, certainly...

But when you move up into the harder crimes, that's where things get tricky, mm?

And I wouldn't be able to tell you. I don't live there.

[technophantom]

Not at all. The problem is simple. The desperate often become cruel, while the rich have no excuse for cruelty, because they have never lived in want and despair.

"Harder" crimes. I'll tell you what I tell everyone. The hardest crimes are committed by the factions with the most money. Napalm strikes in Vietnam weren't done by L.A. drugrunners or NYC serial rapists.

Some 'heroes' from my world do.

[fireinthehero]

Money is the root of all evil, mmm?

I'll accept that it causes an awful lot of misery - and gives those in power plenty of excuses for unacceptable things - but there are some problems that go deeper than for wanting of money.

And I don't believe I was excusing those who use their positions to get away with far worse things than a break in and a robbery, darling. You come on awfully aggressive, honey. Are you looking for an argument, or a conversation?

[technophantom]

Yes.

Aggressive. Do I? Heh.

Not my intention. Actually, I'm impressed. Not many who think they have the right moral side are open to debate at all.

[fireinthehero]

I rather doubt it. I have to play it out in my head like this - if you took away the money... all the money, all forms of economics at all... would people still find something to kill each other over?

Personally, I'm going to say yes. That doesn't make it okay, though. It just means there are other problems to be worked on as well.

I work to keep things in order, but saving lives is first and foremost to me. How to keep people safe, while keeping them free as well - that's my concern. How grand a scope I can affect as one hero with fire powers... that's something else again.

All told, it's still better than using the powers I've been gifted just to get myself ahead in life, don't you think? But that doesn't excuse me from not trying to find ways to do more.

[technophantom]

Why don't we have biofuels and alternate sources of clean energy? Why are wars conducted in countries to feed the military industrial complex? Why conflict diamonds, the sex-trade, religious wars, the war on drugs, sweatshops run by conglomerate slavemasters--the poor on both sides may be fooled into thinking it's ideological or resource-related, but it never is. There are power players responsible for every great evil, inventing adversaries for profit. [god Ghost talks a lot]

Saving lives puts us on the same side.

What more would you do, if you could?

[fireinthehero]

And I don't believe I was saying those things don't happen because of money either. But you're sidestepping my point to monologue at me, just a little.

Take away the money, or even take away the concept of profit, and will people still find something to kill each other over? Hate and anger comes from all sorts of places.

Me, for example, I'm a rather flamboyant kind of guy, aren't I? There are, no doubt, some people who'd want to see me dead just for that! But there are viewpoints on why and the cause of that why... at a guess? I'd say you'd trace it through the history of religious power, and the industry therein, but I can just as much place it as hate being something irrational, that often targets itself towards whatever just bothers someone, below their skin.

Well, that's just it, isn't it? It's all about the how. I'd love for there to be a grand kind of peace, no one in misery... but how do you achieve it? Peace through tyranny is some people's choice. I could put my flames towards the necks of the kind of people you seem to

[technophantom]

[he's actually listening to all this--not that he ever doesn't listen, but he kind of likes the way it's phrased.

He takes a pause.] I could tie homophobia--if that is what you are implying--to religiosity and church profit. The human mind is impressionable, hatred is a powerful motivator. Tribe/cult-oriented thinking is easy to engender even in these enlightened times.

Hm. Not to attack the problem is to attack the symptoms of the problem, and ultimately to change nothing.

[fireinthehero]

And where does that hate, or that mentality come, before the profit side of things exacerbates it?

Money may make the crime easier, or bigger, but it isn't always the cause.

A fan of 'any change is good change', are you? Or am I assuming too much?

Hm.

Are you an anarchist, or a communist?

I'm thinking anarchist.

[technophantom]

It is instilled, every generation, by tradition that was constructed centuries ago by a faction seeking wealth. People do not spontaneously illogically hate. Bigotry is taught.

Surgical strikes against the machine appear necessary. I recognize your stance that your opponent is easy to become - I would not install a leader as corrupt as the ones that were just removed.

Labels come close, but cannot define what I am.

What are you?

[fireinthehero]

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on why people hate, what fuels their anger. It doesn't have just one source, if you ask me.

Ah, but wouldn't everybody? And once there, it's still easy for the idealist to become corrupted - history has shown that, time and again!

Human. [He says, even with a little smile.] And, at the end of the day, Optimistic.

[technophantom]

Hmm.

You've put a lot of thought into this.

...flattery.