Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482350I don't have any trouble understanding what you're saying. Your position is merely of psychological value for its insight into you, rather than deserving to be taken as any sort of rational consideration or empirical observation.

My position has remained exactly the same throughout this thread. Since you seem unable to summarise it (you still have not, despite boasting that you could), I would suggest you go back and read my posts more carefully than you obviously did the first time.

I most certainly did summarize your viewpoint, I just did it in a way I'm fairly sure you don't appreciate. Honestly, after your bullshit in this thread, I really don't care if you appreciate it. If I'm wrong, try pointing out how for once, instead of flinging shit all over the place like a fucking howler monkey.

What my position is deserving of can be judged by everyone reading this thread. That you don't appreciate it doesn't surprise me, since you rarely appreciate any position that doesn't originate from you.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482352I specifically held out genre games as following different standards. I also specifically said that some games were fine with lazy world-building due to other factors.

I don't know what "hold[ing]" games to standards means here, since I have no power over other people except to mock their idiocy and punch holes in their arguments. I evaluate all settings that are not genre settings with a consistent set of standards, and some are better designed and some worse. I can't make people change their settings, so I can't "hold" them to anything. But evaluating them using a relatively consistent set of standards is only fair.

That you feel the need to characterize anything you don't like as "lazy world-building" or to mock what you perceive to be "idiocy" is your entire problem. It's the reason labels such as "pretentious" and "obnoxious" stick to you. You fail to realize that evaluating anything for yourself with a "relatively consistent set of standards" is fine, but that not everyone will share either your "relatively consistent set of standards" or your need to use such consistency, and that does not make them wrong. You very well can "hold" people to standards when discussing them or their games. You use these standards to unfairly judge and verbally condemn them, when you don't even have complete information about what standards they have, or how rigorous they have been in applying standards.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482355If you cannot imagine the worldview of people in the past, I would not call it "having an imagination". You seem unable to understand that they believed in exactly the kind of magical, holy world you have displaced strictly into fantasy, and that the intellectual heritage they left us adequately describes both kinds of worlds (ours and theirs).

This is why your repeated complaints that I am somehow hampered by my atheism are bizarre. I am, if anything, the only person taking the world view of the genuinely religious Christian seriously in this entire thread.

All you're doing at this point is trying to snake out of the examples (the ancient Jews), and the reasoning (Might does not make right) of how a powerful god does not change what is good or bad.

He didn't say he couldn't imagine the worldview of people in the past. You should really try responding to what's written, rather than the voices in your head.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;482356Well, if you  mock people, you are going to get consistently negative reactions. And they aren't going to listen to your criticisms. You seem like a very intelligent guy, with some creative ideas. I am sure in person you are perfeclty friendly. But when you make posts like this, attacking something as innocuous as my use of the word "holding" you come off as a bit pedandic. It just feels like you are belittling others to make yourself feel smart.

And this is exactly what I'm talking about. Well put.

You know Sigmund, you could compress these long multi-posts where you run around after comments that aren't even addressed to you into one-line "I'm butthurt! You suck!" posts and save us all the trouble of having to scroll past low-content, mostly irrelevant whining.

Also, you still haven't summarised my position. You've whined about it, about me, about how mean I am, but you haven't actually managed to restate it.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482365You know Sigmund, you could compress these long multi-posts where you run around after comments that aren't even addressed to you into one-line "I'm butthurt! You suck!" posts and save us all the trouble of having to scroll past low-content, mostly irrelevant whining.

Also, you still haven't summarised my position. You've whined about it, about me, about how mean I am, but you haven't actually managed to restate it.

I could do that, but since that's not my position, I'm not going to. You can also say I didn't restate it for the next decade and it won't be any more true than it is right now. I summarized it just fine. You are just butthurt over how I did it, and so you're sticking your head in the sand and hoping that if you pretend you don't see it, nobody else will either. I challenge you to point out where I've "whined" at all. Holding up a mirror to you so you can see what an asshole you're being is not whining. Any point you might have had, valid or not, is now lost amid all your flailing and poo flinging. Congratulations cupcake.

Edit: Oh, and posts that are not contained within private messages, but rather posted for everyone to see in the thead are by default addressed to anyone and everyone who might care to respond. I would say "nice try", but it really wasn't and I prefer to be honest.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;482356I still wouldn't call it lazy world building. You are going to focus on different things for different genres and different styles of play. Just because someone can imagine a setting where morality doesn't adhere neatly to real-world moral philosophy, that doesn't mean there isn't lots of elbow grease involved.

I don't know how many times I can repeat this, but it seems I need to once again:

My concern is not replicating the morality of the real world. My concern is internal consistency and robustness, even for purely fictional morality. This is especially important when the morality goes beyond merely the ethos of individuals within a culture and is actually metaphysically embedded into the setting.

The more metaphysical the morality, the more important it is that it be consistent. Individual characters in a world are allowed to have perfectly incoherent ideas what is good and bad, just like people sometimes do in real life. But if the morality is metaphysical, then it cannot be incoherent without serious problems.

You can ignore these problems if it makes you happy, but as I said, it assaults the versimilitude of the setting, just as if you introduced screwed around with another metaphysical property, like the flow of time or causation.

Now, if people are unable to do the work required to adequately design a coherent and plausible moral system themselves, then I whole-heartedly encourage them to rip off the real world, since the real world has the advantage of having other people who have thought through these kinds of things.

QuoteWell, if you  mock people, you are going to get consistently negative reactions. And they aren't going to listen to your criticisms. You seem like a very intelligent guy, with some creative ideas. I am sure in person you are perfeclty friendly. But when you make posts like this, attacking something as innocuous as my use of the word "holding" you come off as a bit pedandic. It just feels like you are belittling others to make yourself feel smart.

Words matter. One of the consistent problems with people on this forum is that they throw words around without thinking about what they mean. "Relativism" is a big one, but there are many others.

Holding someone to a standard means to compel someone to somehow abide by it. When I am being accused of being high-handed and domineering, it seems particularly important to point out that I am not compelling anyone to do anything.

As for being nice to people, when people start showing that they are arguing in good faith, I'll be willing to start being nice to them. This thread began as a shrill shriek of self-righteousness, and has continued with most of the posters simply beating their drums without reading what any of their correspondents have written.

Quote from: Sigmund;482367I could do that, but since that's not my position, I'm not going to. You can also say I didn't restate it for the next decade and it won't be any more true than it is right now. I summarized it just fine. You are just butthurt over how I did it, and so you're sticking your head in the sand and hoping that if you pretend you don't see it, nobody else will either. I challenge you to point out where I've "whined" at all. Holding up a mirror to you so you can see what an asshole you're being is not whining. Any point you might have had, valid or not, is now lost amid all your flailing and poo flinging. Congratulations cupcake.

Edit: Oh, and posts that are not contained within private messages, but rather posted for everyone to see in the thead are by default addressed to anyone and everyone who might care to respond. I would say "nice try", but it really wasn't and I prefer to be honest.

:rolleyes:

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482368I don't know how many times I can repeat this, but it seems I need to once again:

My concern is not replicating the morality of the real world. My concern is internal consistency and robustness, even for purely fictional morality. This is especially important when the morality goes beyond merely the ethos of individuals within a culture and is actually metaphysically embedded into the setting.

I understand, but you have been drawing on real world philosophical frameworks and arguments to make your point which is why I said that. My point is since it is entirely fantastical, our logic and reason need not always apply. Especially when you are getting into the idea of where good comes from. I see your argument and I tend to agree with it, but I can also accept the conceit in a game that good comes form the god or gods that made the universe. I think once you go there, since countless possibilities are on the table and I am less worried about scrutinizing it for holes.

QuoteThe more metaphysical the morality, the more important it is that it be consistent. Individual characters in a world are allowed to have perfectly incoherent ideas what is good and bad, just like people sometimes do in real life. But if the morality is metaphysical, then it cannot be incoherent without serious problems.

Well again, I have no problem with looking for consistency, but your standards here strike me as much more detailed and strict than most people are interested in.

QuoteYou can ignore these problems if it makes you happy, but as I said, it assaults the versimilitude of the setting, just as if you introduced screwed around with another metaphysical property, like the flow of time or causation.

I don't think it is quite as bad as messing with causation (that would create significant issues). It is more like messing with politics or economics in my opinion.

QuoteNow, if people are unable to do the work required to adequately design a coherent and plausible moral system themselves, then I whole-heartedly encourage them to rip off the real world, since the real world has the advantage of having other people who have thought through these kinds of things.

Psuedo this is the kind of stuff that rubs people the wrong way, and I understand why. If you want to think through all of the metaphysics in a detailed way (drawing on your knowledge of philosophy) that is fine, it is great that you can put so much thought into that part of your setting. But saying things like "if people are unable to do the work required to adequately design a coherent and plausible moral system" again comes across as you tearing down other posters who do things differently than you in order to build yourself up. I don't think that is your intention, but that is how it comes across to me.

QuoteWords matter. One of the consistent problems with people on this forum is that they throw words around without thinking about what they mean. "Relativism" is a big one, but there are many others.

Did you honestly have a hard time understanding my use of the word "holding" in this case? Words matter but flexiblity matters too. People use words in different ways in different contexts. Part of effective communication is understanding how a term is being used in a given context and adapting to it. Sure you can walk around correcting everyone over their use of the word "relativism" (which has very different meaning across different disciplines and in different social circles) or you can adapt in order to communicate effectively.

QuoteHolding someone to a standard means to compel someone to somehow abide by it. When I am being accused of being high-handed and domineering, it seems particularly important to point out that I am not compelling anyone to do anything.

This isn't my interpretation of "holding someone to a standard". It is one possible meaning, but I think it is a much more flexible phrase than that and can be used to indicate holding someone to a standard in order to make a judgment about them (not compelling them to do anything).

QuoteAs for being nice to people, when people start showing that they are arguing in good faith, I'll be willing to start being nice to them. This thread began as a shrill shriek of self-righteousness, and has continued with most of the posters simply beating their drums without reading what any of their correspondents have written.

Fair enough. Lots of people have been angry on this thread. And maybe I am just noticing your posts more because I am arguing from the other side than you. But don't expect to win over any one if you are going to insult them. Honeslty you make some of the most compelling arguments on the forum. I don't think I could beat you in a debate on most subjects. But you undermine your own position by resorting to insults and ridicule.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482368I don't know how many times I can repeat this, but it seems I need to once again:

My concern is not replicating the morality of the real world. My concern is internal consistency and robustness, even for purely fictional morality. This is especially important when the morality goes beyond merely the ethos of individuals within a culture and is actually metaphysically embedded into the setting.

The more metaphysical the morality, the more important it is that it be consistent. Individual characters in a world are allowed to have perfectly incoherent ideas what is good and bad, just like people sometimes do in real life. But if the morality is metaphysical, then it cannot be incoherent without serious problems.

You can ignore these problems if it makes you happy, but as I said, it assaults the versimilitude of the setting, just as if you introduced screwed around with another metaphysical property, like the flow of time or causation.

Now, if people are unable to do the work required to adequately design a coherent and plausible moral system themselves, then I whole-heartedly encourage them to rip off the real world, since the real world has the advantage of having other people who have thought through these kinds of things.



Words matter. One of the consistent problems with people on this forum is that they throw words around without thinking about what they mean. "Relativism" is a big one, but there are many others.

Holding someone to a standard means to compel someone to somehow abide by it. When I am being accused of being high-handed and domineering, it seems particularly important to point out that I am not compelling anyone to do anything.

As for being nice to people, when people start showing that they are arguing in good faith, I'll be willing to start being nice to them. This thread began as a shrill shriek of self-righteousness, and has continued with most of the posters simply beating their drums without reading what any of their correspondents have written.

austinjimm said, "What a ridiculous and irrelevant argument. Good/Evil, absolute or otherwise, are whatever your DM says it is at any given time of day." You responded...

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478227That is both retarded and empirically untrue.

Conveniently ignoring, of course, that AJ was referring to good/evil in the context of an imaginary world to be used in a game of pretend, where the players can imagine whatever the fuck they want. So, you were putting forth your opinion as fact, when it isn't even accurate. Nothing about pretend worlds that exist only in the minds of their players is empirical anything.

More examples...

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478229Protip: Tolkien is not a DM. He is an author. Confusing the two completely distinct roles is another, unrelated sign of a shithead DM, as well as of someone with a tenuous grasp of reality.

Bonus protip: As Frank pointed out, Tolkien didn't consider orcs to be irredeemably evil.



If you think I am trying to portray myself a victim of something here, you are even stupider than the above comment about Tolkien being a DM makes you appear.

... wherein you pretend MDB was referring to Tolkien as a DM, when what was actually being referred to was Tolkien's world-building.  You saw MDB mention "shithead DM" and Tolkien in the same sentence and, ignoring the context, pounced on that in order to try to discredit MDB. Typical, especially when your argument is weak to begin with.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478233At this point, other than a handful of posters (Frank amongst them), this thread is full retard.

Let's go down the full retard list:

1) Morrow pretending to be a psychologist / moral philosopher rationalising a society of psychopaths, something that has never actually existed
1a) Someone mentions the Arabs / Muslims in relation to this

2) Misuse of the term "moral relativism" as a pejorative against some moral position the writer dislikes despite it actually being a more universal or absolute principle than the writer holds

3) Irrelevant fulminating against LIBRALZM and "white guilt"

4) Consistent confusion of authoritative citation of source material and facts with whims, desires, dreams & half-memories, also what you can find on the first page of Google that seems like it kind of supports what you said

5) A flood of low-post-count posters with indistinguishable and ignorant opinions jackal-wanking one another

6) Laziness, ignorance and stupidity deriving from privilege & the exploitation of the hard work of others are valorised by people too unimaginative to even make up sensible or interesting imitations of the world. The valorisations are used to explain why their laziness, ignorance, and stupidity are wonderful, and actually a sign of discerning taste & skill.


Yeap, it's a full retard thread all right.

This one's the real gem. Here, you assert your imagined superiority over pretty much everyone else. It very much speaks for itself.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478517I don't argue with stationery.



Yes, if one gets rid of the need for child-rearing and social cohesion it becomes plausible, if still unlikely, to have a gang of murder-machines. I've already agreed the Orcs from WFRP are an example of how to do just this, though that particular implementation isn't my favourite (due to the soccer hooligan angle, mainly).

In that case though, you're basically dealing with something like zombies. Might as well just use zombies or something similar.

Here you once again put forth your own opinions as some sort of universal standard. At least it's nice to know I'm not stationary.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478586A recent study showed that 65% of Gnolls no longer have the "E" gene, so no, they aren't an evil species.


The whole notion of an "evil race" is conceptually problematic, and something I avoid whenever possible. In the setting of mine that has abundant Gnolls (the Dawnlands), they are violent, predatory pack hunters with a taste for the flesh of sentients, and mostly belong to cults that worships demons. That means that most Gnolls are pretty evil. Intrinsically? No. I see no reason to say that Gnolls are any more evil than the above reasons make them.

Once again. It may be "conceptually problematic" for you.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478822I'm glad you managed to have fun, but you don't understand morality very well, and your self-described system for it has all sorts of ridiculous characteristics. We've discussed it several times over the years now, as you should recall.

I am not impressed with the creation of fake moral dilemmas by exploiting metaphysics. "Should orc noncombatants be killed?" is as stupid as "Should you travel back in time to kill Hitler?" It's a purposefully constructed puzzle (in the Wittgensteinian sense) of morality trying to disguise itself as an actual moral deliberation.

For someone who supposedly believes that "words matter" and that how one expresses their ideas is important, you sure do fail at expressing your "opinions" if all this really is just how you approach RPGing and world-building, and is not meant to be you expressing these ideas as somehow universal, or you trying to replicate the morality of the real world.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482370:rolleyes:

And this right here is what you think is an actual rebuttal. Your disdain and dismissive attitude is exactly why you often can't be taken seriously. It's sad, because you really do have decent ideas at times. Get over it.

Where did this tendency to try to dismiss other people's points as "whining" come from? It's irritating, and now even I'm doing it. I'm going to try to not do that anymore, so I apologize for that.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;482375I understand, but you have been drawing on real world philosophical frameworks and arguments to make your point which is why I said that. My point is since it is entirely fantastical, our logic and reason need not always apply. Especially when you are getting into the idea of where good comes from. I see your argument and I tend to agree with it, but I can also accept the conceit in a game that good comes form the god or gods that made the universe. I think once you go there, since countless possibilities are on the table and I am less worried about scrutinizing it for holes.

You can have a world in which goodness comes from God, but God must be consistently, absolutely, and inflexibly good in order for that to be the case. He can't be an asshole to some orcs, and then kind to other people, and have that be anything more than favouritism and ultimately inconsistency.

Judaism gets around this by having God not be all-loving, so that God creates good things but is not the source of good like a lamp is the source of light.

Christianity deals with it by having God be all-loving and the source of goodness like a lamp is the source of light.

Trying to combine the two - God who is the source of goodness and who has inconsistent, non-universal standards for what is good just falls apart. Calling it "fantasy" doesn't change reasoning or logic (it changes the content they operate on, they themselves are universally true in all possible universes).

QuoteWell again, I have no problem with looking for consistency, but your standards here strike me as much more detailed and strict than most people are interested in.

It's worth pointing out that I am responding to the posters on this thread who argued that it was OK to slaughter orcish noncombatants and provided a spurious and specious set of justifications for it that drew on the terms and concepts I am using. I am simply applying them correctly and consistently and insisting that if they want to go this route, they should do so correctly, rather than simply asserting crap without thinking it through.

If a DM wants to justify unseemly crap like killing noncombatants, I am certainly going to investigate the reasoning behind it, and hold it to a fairly high standard, just as I would if a DM said to me "In this world, rape is cool because God created women to be the slaves of men," or "In this world, black people are less intelligent than whites - the stat bonuses I assign to each are just the objective facts of this world."

I put horrible shit in my games, but I don't try to justify it; it simply is, just like IRL rape and murder happen despite being abominable. If one simply wants the PCs to slaughter orcish noncombatants, well, that doesn't require God Himself smiling down on them as they trod the skulls of infants under their feet.

QuoteI don't think it is quite as bad as messing with causation (that would create significant issues). It is more like messing with politics or economics in my opinion.

Let me assure that if good has metaphysical components, that messing with it is exactly like messing with causation. The damage may not be as obvious, but it is as profound. The metaphysics of a world are the foundations out of which everything else must derive. A world where goodness was radically different in the ways described would be as bizarre if carried out logically as one in which causation worked in some radically different way.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482381Calling it "fantasy" doesn't change reasoning or logic (it changes the content they operate on, they themselves are universally true in all possible universes).

Here is the core of the differences I think.  You see moral theory based on reason and logic to be a universal truth that transcends any idea of god, in other words, gods are not the source of truth, they are simply another form of being subject to metaphysical law.  In general, I would agree with you that this applies to most settings, however, I can just as easily see a cosmology where a God, as the creator of all, is the source of all Truth.  I know that seems irrational, and illogical, and it is, that's the point.

I no more have to defend my cosmology before a round table of the world's philosophers who existed in a world with no god, then I have to defend my magic system before a round table of the world's physicists who existed in a world with no magic.

Getting back to the wonders of orcs...
Even in a dualist or pantheist setting, you have gods who are the embodiment of truth, goodness, what have you and those who are the embodiment of evil.  Humans are not created to be the embodiment of good, humans are good, evil and everything in between.  They are a different class of being from the "irredeemable orc", which was created to be the physical embodiment of their god.  There are select few humans who are the direct tools of their god on a world.  Every single "irredeemable orc" is the direct tool of its god on the world.  They breed, multiply, cull the weak, forge the strong, and do their god's bidding of murder, rape, torture and destruction by the very nature of their souls and essence, given them by their god.  Is that really such an impossible concept?  Of course there is no real world analogue, is that even a point worth addressing?

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482381You can have a world in which goodness comes from God, but God must be consistently, absolutely, and inflexibly good in order for that to be the case. He can't be an asshole to some orcs, and then kind to other people, and have that be anything more than favouritism and ultimately inconsistency.

Judaism gets around this by having God not be all-loving, so that God creates good things but is not the source of good like a lamp is the source of light.

Christianity deals with it by having God be all-loving and the source of goodness like a lamp is the source of light.

Trying to combine the two - God who is the source of goodness and who has inconsistent, non-universal standards for what is good just falls apart. Calling it "fantasy" doesn't change reasoning or logic (it changes the content they operate on, they themselves are universally true in all possible universes).



It's worth pointing out that I am responding to the posters on this thread who argued that it was OK to slaughter orcish noncombatants and provided a spurious and specious set of justifications for it that drew on the terms and concepts I am using. I am simply applying them correctly and consistently and insisting that if they want to go this route, they should do so correctly, rather than simply asserting crap without thinking it through.

If a DM wants to justify unseemly crap like killing noncombatants, I am certainly going to investigate the reasoning behind it, and hold it to a fairly high standard, just as I would if a DM said to me "In this world, rape is cool because God created women to be the slaves of men," or "In this world, black people are less intelligent than whites - the stat bonuses I assign to each are just the objective facts of this world."

I put horrible shit in my games, but I don't try to justify it; it simply is, just like IRL rape and murder happen despite being abominable. If one simply wants the PCs to slaughter orcish noncombatants, well, that doesn't require God Himself smiling down on them as they trod the skulls of infants under their feet.



Let me assure that if good has metaphysical components, that messing with it is exactly like messing with causation. The damage may not be as obvious, but it is as profound. The metaphysics of a world are the foundations out of which everything else must derive. A world where goodness was radically different in the ways described would be as bizarre if carried out logically as one in which causation worked in some radically different way.

Why is it so hard for you to suspend disbelief for this shit, but it's ok that druids can physically change their form into that of animals, wizards can cause things to appear out of thin air, or even that a creature the size and build of a dragon can fly at all. None of these are any less fantastic than the idea of a God that can be "good" and demand the destruction of "evil" at the same time. To be completely honest, I love your world-building, and on a level of purely personal taste I am much more likely to enjoy your standards of world-building and metaphysics than ones with much less rigorously thought out cosmology and set of moral standards. However, it is not wrong for someone to have tastes that run differently or even counter to your own. It can even be fun, if one allows oneself to be less demanding. More cartoonish, for sure, but no less potentially enjoyable.

Quote from: CRKrueger;482383Here is the core of the differences I think.  You see moral theory based on reason and logic to be a universal truth that transcends any idea of god, in other words, gods are not the source of truth, they are simply another form of being subject to metaphysical law.  In general, I would agree with you that this applies to most settings, however, I can just as easily see a cosmology where a God, as the creator of all, is the source of all Truth.  I know that seems irrational, and illogical, and it is, that's the point.

I'm well aware of the existence of such a view - Sunni Islam since al-Ghazali (at least) holds it. Sunni Islam does not have a good explanation for why it is the case though (it's a mystery of the faith), and of course, miraculously, Allah decides that reason and logic do hold in everything, so that reasoning about morality still holds valid (Islamic jurisprudence is built around interpreting God's will as revealed to Mohammed).

"Being the source of truth" is a more complex concept than one might imagine, and it elides a lot of messy details, just like saying "radio waves are light waves" won't itself tell how to you build a radio that works. It goes into the nature of God, and brings in all sorts of issues about what that is.

QuoteGetting back to the wonders of orcs...
Even in a dualist or pantheist setting, you have gods who are the embodiment of truth, goodness, what have you and those who are the embodiment of evil.  Humans are not created to be the embodiment of good, humans are good, evil and everything in between.  They are a different class of being from the "irredeemable orc", which was created to be the physical embodiment of their god.  There are select few humans who are the direct tools of their god on a world.  Every single "irredeemable orc" is the direct tool of its god on the world.  They breed, multiply, cull the weak, forge the strong, and do their god's bidding of murder, rape, torture and destruction by the very nature of their souls and essence, given them by their god.  Is that really such an impossible concept?  Of course there is no real world analogue, is that even a point worth addressing?

This "real world analogue" stuff is a red herring other people keep on bringing up, not me. My concern remains that I don't think a group like that would be able to maintain self-sustaining, intergenerational society so that there would be children and women (or at least female noncombatants). If you want relentless killer orcs, then you pretty much have to make them fungus or drops of a dying god's blood or whatever, and throw out the anthropological realism of having a lair somewhere with women sewing shirts and orcish children roaming around.

I've said before that either one is fine, but the two don't mix, or if they do, no one has yet managed to lay out how they could adequately.