Avatar's Extended edition thoughts

[madd0ct0r]

Communication may be a two way street, but the moral issue here isn't communication, it's ownership. It really is that simple.
I mean, you're framing this as " the survey equipment detected the rocks, and they started mining THEN discovered the locals are actually people and tried negotiating"

For this I have two statements.
1) prove it. Prove that was the order of events. It strains all common sense but then so does Sully, so I'll accept it as possible in this work of fiction, but you should provide evidence for a key claim like that. According to the timeline in your first post, Avatars were invented BEFORE unobtantium mining started. Did the humans get permission then?
2) If that sequence of events is correct, from the Na'vi's point of view, the events followed this sequence: they are chilling in their house. Steel monsters drop from the sky, do not try to communicate and start eating the land. I don't know about you, but I'd have an easier time accepting a bow-using fire-using creature that looks almost exactly like me is also a person then I would for a city block sized robot bulldozer that is apparently digging a burrow.

In terms of stand my ground, a mailbox and a field full of crops would warrant very different responses, and we're not talking about a mailbox are we?
I can't prove it, but perhaps the Na'vi did reach out to communicate through the tree web that connects all living things on Pandora? 'Mother Nature, why is big steel beetle diggging up the forest?' That would be much more in character (and more sensible in the context of what they know) than a Na'vi deciding that the bulldozers are from space and might have intelligent parasites living in them.

[FaxModem1]

It could very well be that the humans started mining before they made avatars, those two events are interchangeable in the timeline. The key factor is that the Na'Vi don't talk to humans, whether because the giant machines scared them or they don't like non-Na'vi. BUT, the avatars are necessary, as the Na'Vi won't talk to them unless they are in avatar form. Even when Grace has a school, and RDA-Na'Vi relations are at their highest, she has to teach in Avatar form. This can't be due to fear of giant bulldozers, as Grace has no reason to bring them to the school. This means the RDA, who don't really care about the Na'Vi, and care about the bottom line, made these avatars just so that they could even talk to the locals, since it was impossible without them. The other explanation is that the RDA wasted billions of dollars on these suits(as again, they are so expensive that they bring Sully in his twin's place) rather than just talk to them in person because they thought it was a good way to do things.

The RDA is able to pick up unobtanium deposits without physically being there at the Home Tree, and the weird electro-static whatever field that jams their instruments that's near there/is there. Due to the RDA characters commenting on how they've never been near Hometree, that's what makes Sully so special, they must be able to pick it up from a distance. We know, in the battle for the Soul Tree, that they can't pick up and lock on to the Na'Vi due to the jamming field. So, a survey team or scanners or whatever would be able to detect the magic rocks, but wouldn't know the Na'Vi were there until they made actual first contact.

There is mention of offering the Na'Vi things, and the Na'Vi refusing, Selfridge's comments that they don't want roads, etc. Considering Grace was trusted and considered 'Mother', she was likely the ambassador, as no other negotiator is mentioned, along with the Na'vi's refusal to talk to the tiny humans. Otherwise, there were negotiations that never mentioned access to the unobtanium or ways to go about it. This is unlikely, as Ney'tiri's tribe doesn't allow talking with outsiders unless they are brought into the tribe, and the Na'vi thinks its about trees, while the RDA thinks its about rocks. Grace is a scientist, and apparently gained quite a bit of information on how the Na'vi society works, but she focused on teaching basic education as well as environmentalism and learning more about the ecology and culture, so she didn't seem to have the priority of putting the RDA's interests forward. This goes on until Ney'tiri's sister burns down a bulldozer and leads to her getting shot at the school, as Grace reminisces about how they don't call her 'mother' anymore after that incident.

The RDA never engage in an extermination campaign against the Na'vi, until Sully raises an entire army, and Hell's Gate is presumed as a target. Due to the lack of reporters, government oversight officials or supervisors, or anyone not already in the RDA's employ, the Na'Vi's treatment doesn't seem to be an issue back on Earth except for the moral standards of the RDA itself. Quarritch is only able to get permission to bomb Hometree, destroying their home, once the bulldozer crew are killed, and only on the stipulation that it be 'humane' due to his teargassing beforehand. This means that this was NOT something they had done before, as otherwise Quarritch wouldn't have been asking permission to bomb somebody's home if he already had carte blanche to do so. Before that, Selfridge was trying to find some sort of compromise via Sully and Grace, with the Na'Vi response being to slit their throats(or about to before Quarritch interrupted).

So, the RDA are acting with relative kid gloves for a while, until they see negotiating as pointless. Either 22nd century humans are moralistic about genocide and stealing from native populations, to the point that they try diplomacy while being shot at, or, the RDA feels guilty about mining on land that wasn't theirs and wanted to make it right and exist in peace, as its preferable to slaughtering entire villages, even though they could get away with it.

[madd0ct0r]

you missed a bit off the last sentance.

"Either 22nd century humans are moralistic about genocide and stealing from native populations, to the point that they try diplomacy while being shot at, or, the RDA feels guilty about mining on land that wasn't theirs and wanted to make it right and exist in peace, as its preferable to slaughtering entire villages, even though they could get away with it. - AND DECIDE TO DO SO RATHER THEN GIVE UP PROFITS BASED OFF MINERALS UNDER SOMEBODY ELSE'S LAND"

That is the key to my argument, and you have ignored it multiple times now when directly asked.

Now. I'm interested in your conception of property rights. Your vision of corporate progress relies on such things. Now. Does being a hunter gatherer society mean the savages don't get property rights?

The only way your suggestion of moral greyness makes sense is if you subconsciously believe the economically optimal distribution of goods defines the the morally optimal distribution. Is that what you believe?

oh wait, you answered:

And yes, they lost all rights to strip mine it, hence them trying to negotiate a way to acquire those rights, which Sully ultimately failed at

So basically, the RDA were thieves, invaders, vandals who tried less risky options first but were never going to stop in terms of profit. I'm pretty sure there's direct references to bad publicity in terms of the main damage done from killing Na'Vi, not so much moralistic agonising. That is unambiguous by your own admission. The rest of it is akin to blaming a woman's rape on refusing to be polite to the invader. Communicative Na'Vi or not, do you think the RDA would have acted differently in the end? The Na'vi would never accept the mining on any terms and we both know that. It's even explicitly confirmed in the script by someone who would actually know.

[FaxModem1]

Do you mean Sully? No, we can't trust his judgement, as he doesn't know what the unobtainium is for, and is clearly against his fellow man, as he demonizes them at every turn, to try and ingratiate himself with the Na'Vi. The man didn't care about the RDA, the unobtainium, or other people, only whether or not he got his fancy new legs, or to enjoy the life of being a Na'Vi.

Do I think the RDA would have acted differently in the end? Yes, considering Selfridge gave Sully an opportunity, even when contrasted with Quarritch's proof from Sully's recordings that they have nothing to give to the Na'Vi. But then the Na'Vi started stringing up people to have their throats slit. And what about reclamation? Or underground mining? We honestly don't know what the Na'Vi's terms would have been, because they're never asked and they never respond. The Na'Vi might have gone, "Oh, you mean the stuff that makes the rocks float? Take it and leave our trees alone." and that would have been it, that would have been all that was needed but diplomacy never happened.

And when it comes to killers vs thieves, I side with the thieves, at least they're not violent towards others unless they have to be.

[madd0ct0r]

Have to be violent in order to steal, while the killer's only want to be left alone by the murderous thieves (pro tip - nerve has into houses is always going to injure so one and risk killing people. They were prepared to do that for profit.)

If they chose not to steal no issue yeah?



You keep coming back to this diplomacy thing. I don't think it would ever work. What could the rda offer that the na'vi wanted? Nothing.
They cannot offer anything as all material comes from the cycles of the planet and is tied to that. Stop thinking what you would want and get inside the head of a head that literally communes with the ecosystem

[biostem]

Wasn't there mention that the unobtainium running throughout Pandora acted to permit the planet's interconnected/semi-intelligent nature , and that the humans mining it out would be like some foreign organism trying to remove neurons/nerves from a human brain?

[madd0ct0r]

Yes. But in fairness I'm not sure either of the two groups knew that until near the bed of the film. Its a practical point but not part of the moralistic argument that fax is trying to advance

[Alyrium Denryle]

Yes, there are limits, and Selfridge very well may say no. But he was willing to give Sully a chance to come to sort sort of accord

An accord that left them with their pick of places to strip mine, on a planet that was not theirs, under threat of ethnic cleansing that could be used to "renegotiate" the terms at any time.

Where oh where have we seen this before?

Oh, wait. I remember.



The RDA had no justifiable reason to maintain a presence on that planet at all, save *maybe* cultural exchange. They had no right to land there on a populated world without the consent of the native sentient residents, even if said residents did not talk to them. No right whatsoever to start strip-mining, irrespective of whether the natives talked to them. They had absolutely no right At All to attempt forcible relocation, or send in bulldozers, no matter the fuck what the natives did in response to their blatant violation of their sovereignty and sentient rights.

Zero. Zilch. Nada.

Shh, you'll point out the holes in the film's blatant moralizing about why corporations, militarism, and technological progress are bad.

I saw nothing in that movie that hated on technology. The planet was a wonder, and the actual scientists were protagonists. Corporate greed IS bad when it steps over sentient beings. Militaries ARE bad when they are used to violate the rights of sentient beings.

They've got nothing against the Na'vi so long as they don't get in the way of what they want.

Which still makes them sociopaths.

Why are people so insistent on trying to paint the natives as the bad guys? Are they afraid of facing their own cultural history?

That is exactly what it is.

The farm scenario isn't compatible, as your first response to someone drilling on your property is probably not shooting them and doing everything you can to kill anyone who comes anywhere near you if they aren't the same race as you.

Actually, it is. Because if someone comes by and sees that I live there and am clearly sentient, and still start strip mining the place with my house (and me) still on it, they obviously dont give a shit about my life, well-being, livelihood, or anything else pertaining to me.

And yes, they lost all rights to strip mine it, hence them trying to negotiate a way to acquire those rights, which Sully ultimately failed at because he never told them that they want those, and what the Na'Vi might want in return. But hey, if you want to peg me into a nice little box, feel free.

And they were still perfectly fine with ethnic cleansing. It does not matter if Sully failed to do his job. They were NEVER going to reach an agreement regarding strip mining of that planet, because the entire culture of the Na'Vi revolves around their physiological connectivity with their own biosphere, which operates as a god damned hive mind.

Protip: If not reaching an agreement means genocide, there is no chance in hell an agreement would EVER be in good faith anyway.

I even note that in my first post. But communication is a two way street, and the Na'Vi don't even seem to know that the humans are after the unobtanium, only that they are knocking down trees.

Which is fucking irrelevant. Get it through your skull. The Na'Vi are under no obligation to negotiate or even communicate.

The ONLY way a case could be made that the Na'Vi are in any way in the wrong is if, when sentience was discovered, the RDA packed up camp, put all their assets in orbit, and sent down absolutely nothing but ambassadors and linguists who were then killed.

They did not, as far as I know, do this. They continued mining operations even as they tried to negotiate. Which means said negotiation was NEVER in good faith to begin with.

you can tell them to get off your land, or that hey, you're damaging my property. The Na'Vi don't do this.

If they start bulldozing with you still there, they know they are on your land, and already know you probably want them to stop. They just dont care. Asking politely gets you nowhere, especially if, while you are talking, they continue to destroy your house.

Do I think the RDA would have acted differently in the end? Yes, considering Selfridge gave Sully an opportunity

An opportunity that was basically "mass relocate and lose a huge part of the planetary hive mind upon which you depend/be homeless... or die"

That is not an opportunity.

[FaxModem1]

Wasn't there mention that the unobtainium running throughout Pandora acted to permit the planet's interconnected/semi-intelligent nature , and that the humans mining it out would be like some foreign organism trying to remove neurons/nerves from a human brain?

It's possible, but it's never really established that is the relationship between the plants and the magic rocks. However, it's probably likely, as the giant Hometree is right under the largest deposit they've ever seen. Grace mentions the sophistication of the plants and how they are essentially one giant network, but never mentions that the rocks create the sophistication of the plant life.

However, if the Na'Vi had known, or the Humans had known, and the Na'Vi were saying, "Please don't lobotomize our global network/god.", and the RDA continued, it would put the unobtainium mining in a much darker biological one, as the RDA would be a a neural parasite eating away at the planet, with the Na'Vi being the moon's natural defenses against such an invader. One that fails utterly until Eywa calls upon the entire planet's biosphere to kill the humans.

[FaxModem1]

Yes, there are limits, and Selfridge very well may say no. But he was willing to give Sully a chance to come to sort sort of accord

An accord that left them with their pick of places to strip mine, on a planet that was not theirs, under threat of ethnic cleansing that could be used to "renegotiate" the terms at any time.

Where oh where have we seen this before?

Oh, wait. I remember.

The RDA had no justifiable reason to maintain a presence on that planet at all, save *maybe* cultural exchange. They had no right to land there on a populated world without the consent of the native sentient residents, even if said residents did not talk to them. No right whatsoever to start strip-mining, irrespective of whether the natives talked to them. They had absolutely no right At All to attempt forcible relocation, or send in bulldozers, no matter the fuck what the natives did in response to their blatant violation of their sovereignty and sentient rights.

Zero. Zilch. Nada.

The ethnic cleansing happened when the bulldozer crew and security escorts were slaughtered, and only by Quarritch's prompting that it would be 'humane'. Selfridge was wanting to make a trade deal. Yes, he wanted the unobtainium under the Hometree, and if the Na'Vi had made an agreement for the RDA to mine underneath, in exchange for say, food trade and reclamation of all already damaged areas, and survival of their hometree, then no fight would have happened beyond the fights they'd already had.

And does this mean that the Prawns from District 9 were in the wrong for coming to Johannesburg, and the humans there were in the right to put them in camps and generally starve them? Because the Prawns were violating their sovereignty and sentient rights? They clearly violated their airspace, were clearly in the wrong for coming when not invited, and deserved the human's treatment of them.

Shh, you'll point out the holes in the film's blatant moralizing about why corporations, militarism, and technological progress are bad.

I saw nothing in that movie that hated on technology. The planet was a wonder, and the actual scientists were protagonists. Corporate greed IS bad when it steps over sentient beings. Militaries ARE bad when they are used to violate the rights of sentient beings.

If Grace is there with you -- look in her
memories -- she can show you the world we
come from. There’s no green there. They
killed their Mother, and they’re gonna do
the same thing here.

Which goes in contrast to him fighting in jungle campaigns, the bringing back of animals on the news, etc.

I made a kill today. We ate it. At least I know
where that meal came from.

Jake is complaining about the meal Grace made for him for his human body, not seeming to realize that synthetic food is necessary for either the huge population on Earth that has to rely on it, and/or for the human population there on Pandora that probably can't eat everything that comes from Pandora.

The planet was a wonder...for the Na'Vi. For the humans, it was a world that tried to kill them at all times in various ways, without their advanced technology they would die within minutes(as Sully discovered the hard way when Quarritch attacked his sleeping body). The movie paints tribalism and getting back to nature as correct, and better for Sully than anything Earth could ever offer. Sully's journey is moving away from life as a human to a Na'Vi, and rejecting humanity completely, to the point where he calls humans aliens.

They've got nothing against the Na'vi so long as they don't get in the way of what they want.

Which still makes them sociopaths.

And the Na'Vi psychopaths for killing anyone that's not them.

The farm scenario isn't compatible, as your first response to someone drilling on your property is probably not shooting them and doing everything you can to kill anyone who comes anywhere near you if they aren't the same race as you.

Actually, it is. Because if someone comes by and sees that I live there and am clearly sentient, and still start strip mining the place with my house (and me) still on it, they obviously dont give a shit about my life, well-being, livelihood, or anything else pertaining to me.

Except that's not how it seemed to happen. They came by, saw what they thought were cows or monkeys and other wildlife, started mining, then found out among the cows, were farmers raising the cows. See my Narnia and the Animals example.

And yes, they lost all rights to strip mine it, hence them trying to negotiate a way to acquire those rights, which Sully ultimately failed at because he never told them that they want those, and what the Na'Vi might want in return. But hey, if you want to peg me into a nice little box, feel free.

And they were still perfectly fine with ethnic cleansing. It does not matter if Sully failed to do his job. They were NEVER going to reach an agreement regarding strip mining of that planet, because the entire culture of the Na'Vi revolves around their physiological connectivity with their own biosphere, which operates as a god damned hive mind.

Protip: If not reaching an agreement means genocide, there is no chance in hell an agreement would EVER be in good faith anyway.

Except that not reaching an agreement didn't prompt the genocide, it was the slaughter of the bulldozer crew and prodding by Quarritch that diplomacy had failed and that he was going to be 'humane' that led to them destroying the Hometree.

I even note that in my first post. But communication is a two way street, and the Na'Vi don't even seem to know that the humans are after the unobtanium, only that they are knocking down trees.

Which is fucking irrelevant. Get it through your skull. The Na'Vi are under no obligation to negotiate or even communicate.

The ONLY way a case could be made that the Na'Vi are in any way in the wrong is if, when sentience was discovered, the RDA packed up camp, put all their assets in orbit, and sent down absolutely nothing but ambassadors and linguists who were then killed.

They did not, as far as I know, do this. They continued mining operations even as they tried to negotiate. Which means said negotiation was NEVER in good faith to begin with.

They don't seem to do this, they just seem to create the schools, the Avatar program, and send science teams to try and communicate with the Na'Vi. This is extrapolation on my part, as the movie focuses on the last six months of what's going on, not the preceding 20 to whatever years. We know that they tried to negotiate, and that they did so by overcoming the Na'Vi's xenophobia, we know that their bulldozers were operational at some point after the school was established. Whether there was a, heh heh, 'Grace period' of not mining that started up again once the two peoples seemed to be talking or the bulldozers continued regardless of the diplomatic progress this would cost them isn't clear. But it's more than likely that the RDA just continued mining.

Again, the RDA seemingly only cares about the bottom line, so they mine anyway, and for bad press, which is odd, as there are no press on Pandora to report them, unless the 22nd century has done away with non-disclosure agreements and whistle blowers are a huge problem.

So, they limited themselves to Hell's gate, and Neytiri's sister crossed their boundaries and burned one down, causing the RDA to follow her to the school, or they were burning down moving bulldozers.

you can tell them to get off your land, or that hey, you're damaging my property. The Na'Vi don't do this.

If they start bulldozing with you still there, they know they are on your land, and already know you probably want them to stop. They just dont care. Asking politely gets you nowhere, especially if, while you are talking, they continue to destroy your house.

Except it's not their house, its their land. The point of no return is the destruction of the Hometree. That's the destruction of your house. Beforehand, they seem to be digging up your yard, and since there are no real talks between them and you, it becomes the Hatfields and McCoys, only about the trees and rocks instead of a hog.

Do I think the RDA would have acted differently in the end? Yes, considering Selfridge gave Sully an opportunity

An opportunity that was basically "mass relocate and lose a huge part of the planetary hive mind upon which you depend/be homeless... or die"

That is not an opportunity.

That is Selfridge's opening position, yes. A rather evil one. The Na'Vi's are "Death to the Sky People", also a rather evil one. Sully got them down to mass exile, its possible he could get Selfridge down to underground mining and reclamation as well.

Then again, the RDA are mustache twirling villains who show restraint because of imaginary reporters, so probably not.

[Alyrium Denryle]

The ethnic cleansing happened when the bulldozer crew and security escorts were slaughtered, and only by Quarritch's prompting that it would be 'humane'. Selfridge was wanting to make a trade deal.

How is that at all relevant? How at all does that in any way excuse jack shit?

Imagine this scenario.

A US mining consortium goes into mexico without permission. They begin strip-mining the area around Mexico City without permission using the protection of a very large PMC. When a mexican spec ops team starts killing people and destroying equipment because they are being invaded by a private mining concern, does that then justify the ethnic cleansing of Mexico City?

Of course it fucking does not.

if the Na'Vi had made an agreement for the RDA to mine underneath, in exchange for say, food trade and reclamation of all already damaged areas, and survival of their hometree, then no fight would have happened beyond the fights they'd already had.

Again, how is this relevant? The Na'Vi wanted nothing to do with the humans or a trade agreement. That is all that is relevant. It does not matter what their reasons are, the land is theirs, the entire fucking planet is theirs, and arguably a part of them due to their physiological dependence on and participation in the global hive mind.

And does this mean that the Prawns from District 9 were in the wrong for coming to Johannesburg, and the humans there were in the right to put them in camps and generally starve them? Because the Prawns were violating their sovereignty and sentient rights? They clearly violated their airspace, were clearly in the wrong for coming when not invited, and deserved the human's treatment of them.

The Prawns were not invading. They crashed if I remember properly.

Or can you not understand the moral difference between a predatory mining consortium and refugees?

Protip: A ship that crashes on the shores of a country is entitled to humanitarian aid. Invaders in a private army are entitled to as much or as little fire and death as the invaded nation deigns to grant.

Which goes in contrast to him fighting in jungle campaigns, the bringing back of animals on the news, etc.

Bringing back the odd species is nothing in the face of the mass extinction were are currently precipitating. 37% of global land area is under permanent cultivation, we are fishing our oceans clean of life. Him fighting a jungle campaign only means that there is a patch of rainforest to be found in Africa or S. Asia.

Jake is complaining about the meal Grace made for him for his human body, not seeming to realize that synthetic food is necessary for either the huge population on Earth that has to rely on it, and/or for the human population there on Pandora that probably can't eat everything that comes from Pandora.

Holy leap of logic, batman. It means he takes some satisfaction in hunting his own food. Someone who likes to hunt does not necessarily reject agriculture.

The planet was a wonder...for the Na'Vi.

Or any biologist, chemist, physicist or geologist ever.

For the humans, it was a world that tried to kill them at all times in various ways

So does earth, we just evolved here.

The movie paints tribalism and getting back to nature as correct, and better for Sully than anything Earth could ever offer.

For Sully. A person who's native society screwed him over in every way imaginable, and was working on divesting the Na'Vi of their very existence. Of course he is going to like Na'Vi society more. He identifies with them.

And the Na'Vi psychopaths for killing anyone that's not them.

Killing an invader intent on global strip-mining. All we know is that by the time Sully gets there, the Na'Vi are unwilling to talk to humans and kill those they find. For obvious fucking reasons. We dont know the original state of communications whatsoever and you have provided zero evidence to support your position that they never permitted any sort of contact. Give me quotations to that effect if they exist.

Except that's not how it seemed to happen. They came by, saw what they thought were cows or monkeys and other wildlife, started mining, then found out among the cows, were farmers raising the cows. See my Narnia and the Animals example.

At which point they should have cut their losses and fucking left. With or without diplomatic contact of any kind. "Oh, you dont want to talk to us? Okay. We will leave then. Good luck to you, bye"

Instead, they could not reach an agreement, so strip mined anyway. They had zero respect for the wishes, rights, or even lives of the native population. Zero good faith.

At that point, they transitioned from "ignorant but forgivable fuck-up" to "the worst sort of imperialist"

Except that not reaching an agreement didn't prompt the genocide, it was the slaughter of the bulldozer crew and prodding by Quarritch that diplomacy had failed and that he was going to be 'humane' that led to them destroying the Hometree.

Who cares? Diplomacy fails, so genocide? Really?

If Saudi Arabia decides it no longer wants to sell us oil and kills the PMC we send to seize their oil wells by force, are we justified in nuking Mecca?

They don't seem to do this, they just seem to create the schools, the Avatar program, and send science teams to try and communicate with the Na'Vi.

WHILE MAINTAINING AN ACTIVE MINING OPERATION

At that point, whatever the Na'vi decide to do to them is justified short of gratuitous torture for shits and grins.

Except it's not their house, its their land. The point of no return is the destruction of the Hometree. That's the destruction of your house. Beforehand, they seem to be digging up your yard, and since there are no real talks between them and you, it becomes the Hatfields and McCoys, only about the trees and rocks instead of a hog.

Except it is their house. The Na'Vi depend on the god damned biosphere in its totality. They are hunter-gatherers with some animal husbandry and limited agriculture. They are also physiologically connected to the entire planet and communicate with it. By nature of that physiological connection, that tree is hive-mind sentient. The RDA was attacking the symbiot upon which they depend, if anything, the house analogy is not sufficient to describe that.

That is Selfridge's opening position, yes. A rather evil one.

No Shit.

The Na'Vi's are "Death to the Sky People", also a rather evil one.

No. It was not. According to your own argument, their opening position was "ignore the sky people". It changed to "kill them all" after the RDA started strip mining their planet. Killing people who are intent on strip-mining your planet out from under you is not evil. It is self defense.

Mass exile was fucking generous.

And given how much earth corporations *right now* resist lower-impact mining methods and reclamation, I very much doubt they could have been negotiated down from that their original position. They were not any more mustache twirling villains than the coal companies currently removing mountaintops in west virginia in that respect.

[Metahive]

Communication between humans and Na'vi was very good at the beginning. So good in fact that the Na'vi entrusted the strangers from the stars with the care of their children to learn their language. I mean you've noticed that Neytiri, Tsu'tey and Mo'at all speak English relatively fluently, right? Never wondered where they got it from?

Relationships only soured once some dumbshit mercenaries opened fire on the school with all the children in it just because some Na'vi hid inside who had vandalised one of the mining devices. Can you blame for being put off after that? And no, it doesn't matter that they damaged company equipment, you don't open fire on a school full of children!

[FaxModem1]

Why did Grace, or anyone else, for that matter, not talk to the Na'Vi as a human? It's clearly not for shits and giggles, as the RDA and Jake Sully make a big hooplah about how it costs billions of dollars and lots of time to even make one, plus the five years of travel for the things to even arrive. The Na'Vi don't want to talk to anyone that's not them, even when they consider Grace their 'mother', she has to dress as a Na'Vi to be worth speaking to. That's why I say they're xenophobic. If the only way to engage in conversation with someone is to dress exactly like them and look exactly like them, then it speaks ill will about their tolerance for those not-like them. We even have photographic evidence of it with Grace's memorabilia from her time as a teacher. Not a single shot of her is as a human with the students, so there must have been a reason Grace didn't do it, likely Na'vi xenophobia.

The ethnic cleansing happened when the bulldozer crew and security escorts were slaughtered, and only by Quarritch's prompting that it would be 'humane'. Selfridge was wanting to make a trade deal.

How is that at all relevant? How at all does that in any way excuse jack shit?

It shows that the humans/RDA were trying to avoid war, because of imaginary press that were at least five light years away, while still doing the evil mining. So either the RDA are so stupid as to fear getting bad press from something that no one else will see, their own employees shouldn't be able to talk about, and won't really be able to deliver records to, or they care more about those they're fighting than the Na'Vi do. According to you, the Na'Vi have the right to slaughter Hell's Gate down to the last civilian, but thankfully didn't.

if the Na'Vi had made an agreement for the RDA to mine underneath, in exchange for say, food trade and reclamation of all already damaged areas, and survival of their hometree, then no fight would have happened beyond the fights they'd already had.

Again, how is this relevant? The Na'Vi wanted nothing to do with the humans or a trade agreement. That is all that is relevant. It does not matter what their reasons are, the land is theirs, the entire fucking planet is theirs, and arguably a part of them due to their physiological dependence on and participation in the global hive mind.

And does this mean that the Prawns from District 9 were in the wrong for coming to Johannesburg, and the humans there were in the right to put them in camps and generally starve them? Because the Prawns were violating their sovereignty and sentient rights? They clearly violated their airspace, were clearly in the wrong for coming when not invited, and deserved the human's treatment of them.

The Prawns were not invading. They crashed if I remember properly.

Or can you not understand the moral difference between a predatory mining consortium and refugees?

Protip: A ship that crashes on the shores of a country is entitled to humanitarian aid. Invaders in a private army are entitled to as much or as little fire and death as the invaded nation deigns to grant.

In that case, let's take the live vivisection of the alien in Battle: LA fits your criteria, as they clearly needed to find out the best way to kill an alien invader, to the point of surgery on the alien without its consent until they find the organ that's most vulnerable. Its the treatment of the enemy in a conflict, which in your eyes, should be kill them all, peace is for the weak, and diplomacy doesn't matter if you don't want them there.

We have a movie where the bad guys are the ones trying to follow rules of engagement and avert doing atrocities, and being spurned into destroying homes because the good guys don't and commit atrocities.

Which goes in contrast to him fighting in jungle campaigns, the bringing back of animals on the news, etc.

Bringing back the odd species is nothing in the face of the mass extinction were are currently precipitating. 37% of global land area is under permanent cultivation, we are fishing our oceans clean of life. Him fighting a jungle campaign only means that there is a patch of rainforest to be found in Africa or S. Asia.

Conceded, Earth is up for some rough times. Hope those floating dinner plates from the unobtainium make up for it.

Jake is complaining about the meal Grace made for him for his human body, not seeming to realize that synthetic food is necessary for either the huge population on Earth that has to rely on it, and/or for the human population there on Pandora that probably can't eat everything that comes from Pandora.

Holy leap of logic, batman. It means he takes some satisfaction in hunting his own food. Someone who likes to hunt does not necessarily reject agriculture.

And his rejection of anything human. Grace has to remind him that his human body needs food too. Jake is personally saying that the concept of not personally killing or making your own meal is inferior.

The planet was a wonder...for the Na'Vi.

Or any biologist, chemist, physicist or geologist ever.

As long as they dress up as Avatars, so that they won't be shot at, unless they wander off the beaten path. Then its still even money that they won't be violently killed by nature instead.

For the humans, it was a world that tried to kill them at all times in various ways

So does earth, we just evolved here.

Through our technology, the Na'Vi have things 'perfectly' set up so where they never need build a farm, a fence, beds, as the world naturally supplies them with it. Going by the Avatar wiki, even the creatures from the local wildlife wander into the village to be the night's meal occasionally. Heck, animal husbandry is a natural function of their biology and hexapedes come right to their front door, waiting to be killed for food needs.

The movie paints tribalism and getting back to nature as correct, and better for Sully than anything Earth could ever offer.

For Sully. A person who's native society screwed him over in every way imaginable, and was working on divesting the Na'Vi of their very existence. Of course he is going to like Na'Vi society more. He identifies with them.

And he's our main character, protagonist, and narrator. Unless you're saying we're supposed to disagree with him over the course of the film.

And the Na'Vi psychopaths for killing anyone that's not them.

Killing an invader intent on global strip-mining. All we know is that by the time Sully gets there, the Na'Vi are unwilling to talk to humans and kill those they find. For obvious fucking reasons. We dont know the original state of communications whatsoever and you have provided zero evidence to support your position that they never permitted any sort of contact. Give me quotations to that effect if they exist.

[/quote]

Look, you’re supposed to be winning the
hearts and minds of the natives. Isn’t
that the whole point of your little
puppet show? If you look like them, if
you talk like them, they’ll trust you?

We have a new face.
(turning to Norm)
You’re fluent, you’ve studied the
culture. You’re non-threatening. The
ones we know best -- the Omaticaya clan --
may give you a chance. Maybe you can get
them back to the table before things go
tits-up for good.

That son of a bitch has screwed up this
program enough. All this --
(indicating link room)
-- exists so we can go out there and
build a bridge of trust to these people,
who could teach us so much. But thanks
to Quaritch and his thugs the Na’vi won’t
even talk to us anymore.

So again, the RDA funded the science teams just so the Na'Vi would even talk to them. Grace made progress, but things didn't end well because the RDA overreacted to a girl burning a bulldozer and potentially killing people. Their new hope was Norm, since he would be seen as harmless, and was a rather friendly guy trying to do the right thing. Though I don't see Grace saying that in the extended edition, so it might just be in the script.

Except that's not how it seemed to happen. They came by, saw what they thought were cows or monkeys and other wildlife, started mining, then found out among the cows, were farmers raising the cows. See my Narnia and the Animals example.

At which point they should have cut their losses and fucking left. With or without diplomatic contact of any kind. "Oh, you dont want to talk to us? Okay. We will leave then. Good luck to you, bye"

Instead, they could not reach an agreement, so strip mined anyway. They had zero respect for the wishes, rights, or even lives of the native population. Zero good faith.

At that point, they transitioned from "ignorant but forgivable fuck-up" to "the worst sort of imperialist"

Yes, the RDA cared about the mining. I've been saying that since page 1. The RDA clearly could have handled the negotiations better. One side's sins doesn't excuse the other's.

Except that not reaching an agreement didn't prompt the genocide, it was the slaughter of the bulldozer crew and prodding by Quarritch that diplomacy had failed and that he was going to be 'humane' that led to them destroying the Hometree.

Who cares? Diplomacy fails, so genocide? Really?

If Saudi Arabia decides it no longer wants to sell us oil and kills the PMC we send to seize their oil wells by force, are we justified in nuking Mecca?

No, not at all. But it does show the RDA's attempt at restraint and cooperation until Quarritch went nuts and Selfridge felt he had no choice. Trudy Chacon had the right reaction, that's clearly too far, and destroying an entire culture for the floating plates in restaurants isn't worth it.

They don't seem to do this, they just seem to create the schools, the Avatar program, and send science teams to try and communicate with the Na'Vi.

WHILE MAINTAINING AN ACTIVE MINING OPERATION

At that point, whatever the Na'vi decide to do to them is justified short of gratuitous torture for shits and grins.

Funny that you mention that: Grace and Jake get strung up

Maybe that's the ritual style executions the Na'Vi have, or maybe Tsu'tey was planning on bleeding them out before Mo'at stopped him to ask them for help. Or maybe they'd get vital intelligence about the human's defenses and it would be justified.

Except it's not their house, its their land. The point of no return is the destruction of the Hometree. That's the destruction of your house. Beforehand, they seem to be digging up your yard, and since there are no real talks between them and you, it becomes the Hatfields and McCoys, only about the trees and rocks instead of a hog.

Except it is their house. The Na'Vi depend on the god damned biosphere in its totality. They are hunter-gatherers with some animal husbandry and limited agriculture. They are also physiologically connected to the entire planet and communicate with it. By nature of that physiological connection, that tree is hive-mind sentient. The RDA was attacking the symbiot upon which they depend, if anything, the house analogy is not sufficient to describe that.

The Na'Vi's are "Death to the Sky People", also a rather evil one.

No. It was not. According to your own argument, their opening position was "ignore the sky people". It changed to "kill them all" after the RDA started strip mining their planet. Killing people who are intent on strip-mining your planet out from under you is not evil. It is self defense.

Mass exile was fucking generous.

And given how much earth corporations *right now* resist lower-impact mining methods and reclamation, I very much doubt they could have been negotiated down from that their original position. They were not any more mustache twirling villains than the coal companies currently removing mountaintops in west virginia in that respect.

Sorry for the unclear meaning, I meant during the war and after the school incident. Tsu'tey's position was a very obvious 'kill all sky people'. Maybe since euthanasia was practiced on him, and Jake took over, they were able to settle for forcing them to leave Hell's Gate via shuttle and the spaceships. Tsu'tey's position since the first scene he was in was that Jake should be killed, immediately, and was for killing them as soon as it was revealed that he was not really Na'Vi.


The RDA did wrong by strip mining, never argued against this, but that doesn't mean that shooting poison arrows is the best response, or that the Na'Vi are reasonable for never asking what the heck is going on, why are you doing this, without needing one of the people mining your town to look like you just to have the right to speak.

[madd0ct0r]

[Quote]
But it does show the rda's restraint and cooperation [\quote]

Bull and shit. As I have repeatedly shown over this thread.

If you are going to insist on peddling the idea that the rda had any right to the land then please explain yourself. For the third or fourth time, does economic efficiency constitute moral correctness?

If no then shut the fuck up.

[FaxModem1]

But it does show the rda's restraint and cooperation [\quote]

Bull and shit. As I have repeatedly shown over this thread.

If you are going to insist on peddling the idea that the rda had any right to the land then please explain yourself. For the third or fourth time, does economic efficiency constitute moral correctness?

If no then shut the fuck up.

No, the RDA are bad guys for mining without permission, I think I've said that a few times. Y'all are right, the RDA should have retreated to Hell's Gate and only sent ambassadors, which might have been what happened with Grace and the Avatars, but for Neytiri's sister, the clear cutting from before was too upsetting, and she burned down the bulldozers anyway. Or the RDA said, "Fuck it", and bulldozed and mined to their heart's content while having a school and billions spent on the Avatar program.

Do defending one's borders justify torture, killing and xenophobia? What do you think was going to happen to Grace and Jake before Quarritch and Mo'at interrupted? Aside from Tsu'tey torturing and eventually executing Grace and Jake?

To use the example, If negotiators are sent into Mexico city to try and negotiate access to the city, and failing to do their jobs, are strung up and about to be tortured, are the Mexicans still in the moral right for torturing, then executing them? How should the PMCs react to such a sight, aside from not being there in first place, which we've already established.

But Earth really wants those floating dinner plates, and is paying 40 billion a kilo, and the RDA are greedy bastards, so the RDA is going to go in anyway. I guess treatment of people on the wrong side is justifiable, as they are clearly there for profit, and deserve to have Tsu'tey meet them with his knife.

If, in say, The Last Samurai, there was a scene of Tom Cruise about to brutally torture some American mercenaries, but is interrupted by the troops arriving, we'd call that horrible, and unjustifiable. That's what I'm noting here.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Why did Grace, or anyone else, for that matter, not talk to the Na'Vi as a human? It's clearly not for shits and giggles, as the RDA and Jake Sully make a big hooplah about how it costs billions of dollars and lots of time to even make one, plus the five years of travel for the things to even arrive. The Na'Vi don't want to talk to anyone that's not them, even when they consider Grace their 'mother', she has to dress as a Na'Vi to be worth speaking to. That's why I say they're xenophobic. If the only way to engage in conversation with someone is to dress exactly like them and look exactly like them, then it speaks ill will about their tolerance for those not-like them. We even have photographic evidence of it with Grace's memorabilia from her time as a teacher. Not a single shot of her is as a human with the students, so there must have been a reason Grace didn't do it, likely Na'vi xenophobia.

They clearly know that the people in the skin suits are not them, and basically flesh puppets. It is an idiosyncracy, but I am not actually sure it means what you think it means. I dont know what it does mean, but I know how humans would react if there were people who were actually alien puppets. We would go Torquemada on any suspected flesh puppets.

It shows that the humans/RDA were trying to avoid war

"Let us strip mine your planet, or we go to war" is not mitigation, nor is it acting in good faith.

If some alien race showed up and demanded mining rights for our planet's uranium in exchange for whatever pittance they wanted to give us or they would exterminate our largest cities until we have in, would you consider ANY effort they made to avoid applying the stick of their negotiating strategy to be laudable?

Its the treatment of the enemy in a conflict, which in your eyes, should be kill them all, peace is for the weak, and diplomacy doesn't matter if you don't want them there.

Peace is preferable to war. Most of the time. War is an evil thing, but it is not the most evil thing. There are fates worse than war, and what the RDA was trying to "convince" the Na'Vi to permit them to do was worse. The RDA had no respect for the native ecosystem with or without native sentients. They were intend on a strip mining a planet with a sentient biosphere that acted as a symbiont with the native sentient bipeds.

Were I a Na'Vi, I would happily go to war over that. Especially because the RDA continued to mine without permission. They were not and never were even attempting to negotiate in good faith, and very obviously would have broken or unilaterally modified any agreement or treaty they made as soon as it became convenient. You know it. I know it. The Na'Vi probably had that figured out too.

Diplomacy is good, provided both sides are willing to engage in good faith negotiations, abide by their agreements, and respect refusal when tendered. The RDA was not.

We have a movie where the bad guys are the ones trying to follow rules of engagement and avert doing atrocities, and being spurned into destroying homes because the good guys don't and commit atrocities.

I have not seen Battle:LA, so I cannot comment on that.

That said, in an insurgency against an invasion, there are no such things as civilians save maybe journalists and medics who treat both sides.

If we invaded Venezuela tomorrow to take their oil reserves, our drilling crews would be legitimate military targets, because we would be prosecuting a war of aggression and theft of a country's natural resources. Full stop. Do you think that if we did that, the Venezuelan government would not consider it an act of war? Of course they would. They would lose the war, but they would go to war over it, and after that the civilian population would fight.

And they would be right to do so.

So again, the RDA funded the science teams just so the Na'Vi would even talk to them. Grace made progress, but things didn't end well because the RDA overreacted to a girl burning a bulldozer and potentially killing people. Their new hope was Norm, since he would be seen as harmless, and was a rather friendly guy trying to do the right thing. Though I don't see Grace saying that in the extended edition, so it might just be in the script.

None of that answers the question of what the state of communications was like at first contact. This is YEARS in, if I recall. After the clusterfuck.

Yes, the RDA cared about the mining. I've been saying that since page 1. The RDA clearly could have handled the negotiations better. One side's sins doesn't excuse the other's.

The RDA would not take No for an answer. At that point, the Na'Vi can lose their sovereignty or fight an symmetric war, something you call a sin.

So I suppose that the proper response to any invasion is to roll over?

Sorry for the unclear meaning, I meant during the war and after the school incident. Tsu'tey's position was a very obvious 'kill all sky people'. Maybe since euthanasia was practiced on him, and Jake took over, they were able to settle for forcing them to leave Hell's Gate via shuttle and the spaceships. Tsu'tey's position since the first scene he was in was that Jake should be killed, immediately, and was for killing them as soon as it was revealed that he was not really Na'Vi.

No shit! "Hey, we found an infiltrator of the sky people who are strip mining our planet out from under us!"

"Kill him" is a pretty reasonable position in that situation. It might not be optimal, but it is not exactly unreasonable.

Get this through your thick skull. The Na'Vi were fighting for planetary survival. Their culture, their way of life, their existence as they knew it would end if they permitted the RDA to mine. If not tomorrow, then when fleets of ships dropped more mining equipment in a few years. The RDA had already demonstrated they did not give a shit about the Na'Vi or the planetary biosphere because they continued to mine without an agreement.

Answer this: Do you honestly think the RDA would honor an agreement when they have already demonstrated they dont give a fuck? If no, then when is the point of diplomacy? If yes, why?

On the Na'Vi end, at what point would you draw the line and say that the Na'Vi should fight back?

[madd0ct0r]

You've been arguing all the way along that failure to communicate puts some blame on the na'vi. Even with back pedalling in the above post, it's still in your accused triad of torture, killing and xenophobia. are you trying to shift the goalposts or not?

The scenario in your second sentence is laughable. If the rda were negotiating in good faith and had acknowledged native ownership of the land, how was the sister able to get at the bulldozer? Was it perhaps that the rda were continuing to clear cut the forest even while using the avatar program to win hearts and minds? Were they in fact negotiating in bad faith? If only we had evidence of how they react when they fail to get what they want. Oh yeah, they gas the village and blow up the houses. What lovely people civilization produced.

Was anyone hurt by the attack on the bulldozer? Can you prove it? You'd expect it to be mentioned.

(Incidentally, do you have evidence for torture? Preparing to execute grace and the other one didn't strike me as torture, unless you have similar views of hanging or the electric chair?)

[FaxModem1]

Answer this: Do you honestly think the RDA would honor an agreement when they have already demonstrated they dont give a fuck? If no, then when is the point of diplomacy? If yes, why?

On the Na'Vi end, at what point would you draw the line and say that the Na'Vi should fight back?

Honestly, and this is dependent on this somehow getting back to the reporters that the RDA are so fearful of, that we never see. I think the RDA would honor the agreement, to lessen the amount of lives lost and bad press, and to have guides throughout Pandora. If they spent billions for the Avatars, the school, Grace's research, etc, and were afraid of bad press but were ALSO getting the magic rocks, I think they would agree. This might be my naivety, but aside from Quarritch, they seemed to want peace, while still making profit. This is assuming of course that Selfridge isn't immediately replaced and the treaty is made null and void because they have to agree to reclamation, underground tunneling, and/or other environmental concerns. So, in total, yes.

For the Na'Vi, I think the point of no return was the destruction of Hometree. The brutal murder and destruction of their equivalent of a city is too far, whereas before, the grounds the RDA were trampling before was like knocking over our equivalent of libraries, cemeteries, internet cables, telephone polls, and highways, such as in my limestone example. It's damaging, but it's not life threatening. If they can stop doing that out of ignorance and do what their doing for a rock I care nothing about, and repair the damage they've done, then I'm happy. Diplomacy might work out somehow. If they blow up my home where I and my family sleep, that's too far. Ditto for the Soul tree, as that had special religious, cultural, and political importance for the Na'Vi.

The fighting before that is some people fighting other people due to small skirmishes, because there are always idiots on the frontlines of any conflict, which could be rectified by hammering out some sort of treaty requiring disciplining on both sides by their respective tribe/company.

Course, I'm probably being way too naive about the thing.

[FaxModem1]

You've been arguing all the way along that failure to communicate puts some blame on the na'vi. Even with back pedalling in the above post, it's still in your accused triad of torture, killing and xenophobia. are you trying to shift the goalposts or not?

The scenario in your second sentence is laughable. If the rda were negotiating in good faith and had acknowledged native ownership of the land, how was the sister able to get at the bulldozer? Was it perhaps that the rda were continuing to clear cut the forest even while using the avatar program to win hearts and minds? Were they in fact negotiating in bad faith? If only we had evidence of how they react when they fail to get what they want. Oh yeah, they gas the village and blow up the houses. What lovely people civilization produced.

Was anyone hurt by the attack on the bulldozer? Can you prove it? You'd expect it to be mentioned.

(Incidentally, do you have evidence for torture? Preparing to execute grace and the other one didn't strike me as torture, unless you have similar views of hanging or the electric chair?)

Maybe she attacked the vehicles outside Hell's Gate? Maybe she hit vehicles on patrol? Maybe she climbed the fence? Grace is rather vague on the whole incident.

With the bulldozer? We see a similar incident before the destruction of Hometree, with the Na'Vi executing all RDA workers around the bulldozers. You could argue that this is not the same type of incident, but its Na'vi burning down bulldozers, RDA eventually come roaring after them with bullets, people die. Again, it's only mentioned in passing by Grace, who doesn't go into specifics. Unless you want to count Quarritch's numerous speeches about how many ways there are to die here.

As for torture, we don't see Tsu'tey actively cutting them, but we do see them tied up, Tsu'tey approaching with a knife, and only stopped by Mo'at. If it were a clean, quick kill, the euthanasia practiced by Jake at the end of the film on Tsu'tey would have resembled it. Jake gives him a quick stab somewhere in the chest, quickly killing him, whereas Tsu'tey was going for the long slow route of cutting somewhere around neck, shoulders, or head. The soldiers who were guarding the bulldozer were also set on fire if they weren't already dead by being pelted with arrows, as the RDA team finds afterwards.

[madd0ct0r]

I think you are being naive. It's not what happened historically and its not what is happening right now. I'm back in Vietnam at the moment so this does feel very very close to the bone. The number of farms polluted or villages forced out to make way for resorts is horrible, as is the sheer rapciousness of investing companies. I hate working in construction sometimes. If anything the rda is less bad then companies I've known that shrug and lie and sue at bad press. There was a major one with an oil company in south America and a bought judge recently.

As for your points. Torture, killing and xenophobia.

You have no evidence for torture, there is no evidence of na'vi doing anything but clean kills anywhere in the movie. The best you've got is a lame "potential cut to neck for slow kill". I think you need to think about that and the phrase cutting the throat.

I suspect the bulldozers with quarritch in full rampage may have a few more guards then the one under business as usual. Especially considering they're remote controlled* and the risks associated with being a human around heavy equipment that's knocking over trees. It's certainly never confirmed. So all you have is na'vi shooting at humans after humans shot at their kids. Killing? Yes. Understandable. Yes.

Xenophobia. The communication argument. I will note that by the end of the movie the na'vi have adopted several humans, uploaded two via their most intimate ceremonies and allowed the defeated rda to evacuate. They basically behave better then the humans did. I don't think your argument stands up there either.


*call me out on that. I'm not sure.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Honestly, and this is dependent on this somehow getting back to the reporters that the RDA are so fearful of, that we never see.

If the only thing they are concerned with is bad press, they are not negotiating in good faith.

I think the RDA would honor the agreement, to lessen the amount of lives lost and bad press, and to have guides throughout Pandora.

Really? They were willing, ultimately, to ethnically cleanse the local dominant tribe if they did not get what they want. They were already mining without permission.

Let me break this down for you. Modern corporations right now break their agreements the moment they can get away with it. The Na'Vi have no enforcement mechanism. Which means that similar things to the practices of BP, Exxon Mobile, and Royal Dutch Shell WILL be practiced, and the same threat of extinction will be used as leverage again, and again, and again. Jesus christ, we did this to Native American tribes dozens upon dozens of times.

Step 1. Treaty and relocation
Step 2. Find something we want on their new land/want more lebensraum
Step 3. Threaten to break treaty
Step 4. Break treaty. Natives defend selves. Respond with ethnic cleansing.
Step 5. Force natives to capitulate. Treaty and Relocation
Repeat ad horridum

The ONLY thing that stops modern corporations is a stick bigger than they possess that they cannot practice regulatory capture upon.

They dont LIKE bad press. They will happily live with bad press, just like BP does, and just like Royal Dutch Shell does. Do you even know what they do in Nigeria? No. You dont. And even if you did, you would stop caring after a week or two and continue to get your gas at shell stations.

If they spent billions for the Avatars, the school, Grace's research, etc, and were afraid of bad press but were ALSO getting the magic rocks, I think they would agree. This might be my naivety, but aside from Quarritch, they seemed to want peace, while still making profit.

Billions is a pittance compared to what they stand to make. Dropping rocks from orbit and obliterating the population is also pretty cheap compared to what they stand to make. They will do what is cheapest for them. And that will eventually mean cutting corners. They will maximize return, which will mean mining in prohibited areas or using techniques the Na'Vi would not approve of. However, once they have a sufficiently large mining operation there is sweet fuck all the Na'Vi can do to stop them.

At which point, they no longer have an incentive to respect their wishes.

For the Na'Vi, I think the point of no return was the destruction of Hometree. The brutal murder and destruction of their equivalent of a city is too far, whereas before, the grounds the RDA were trampling before was like knocking over our equivalent of libraries, cemeteries, internet cables, telephone polls, and highways, such as in my limestone example. It's damaging, but it's not life threatening.

So... someone starts destroying your civic infrastructure, culturally important sites, transportation networks, and food supply, and you dont care? Really? That IS life threatening for a hunter-gatherer culture.

I dont believe you.

[Metahive]

So, two guys knock on my door. I open it and one of them starts talking with me while the other marches into my house, starts ripping the wallpaper down, hacks my furniture to bits and knocks holes into the wall. The other guy then says, "how about you give us your sleeping room and agree to sleep on the floor? We really like that room and would like to set up shop there permanently. If you agree we won't have to evict you violently. Ain't that a generous deal?".

According to FaxModem1, if I tried to immediately toss those two idiots out with force if necessary, I'd be in the wrong for "failure to communicate".

[Alyrium Denryle]

So, two guys knock on my door. I open it and one of them starts talking with me while the other marches into my house, starts ripping the wallpaper down, hacks my furniture to bits and knocks holes into the wall. The other guy then says, "how about you give us your sleeping room and agree to sleep on the floor? We really like that room and would like to set up shop there permanently. If you agree we won't have to evict you violently. Ain't that a generous deal?".

According to FaxModem1, if I tried to immediately toss those two idiots out with force if necessary, I'd be in the wrong for "failure to communicate".

To springboard off this, because the analogy is perfect:

Even if they agreed to pay me some sort of rent and I dont mind the floor, given the initial coercion, I cannot at all trust that they wont use further coercion to gain additional concessions of my living space or person. They might demand first-dibs on my groceries (analogous to bioprospecting, hunting the wildlife I depend on into extinction, and logging), the right of prima noctis with anyone I bring home (do I need to describe what this means?), exclusive rights to select my educational materials (indoctrination of children and cultural erasure), or force me to wait on them hand and food (slavery).

Because their initial offering was made under threat of force. Their proposition cannot in any reasonable world be considered good faith, and if I dont expel them by force, they have a foothold and I may not be able to kick them out again. Especially if they start bringing in more friends, which they are certain to do. My only option is to take the sword from its little nook by my bed and forcibly expel them.

Oh sure, I might be able to call the police. Maybe. If the police cared, but in this scenario they are being paid off (effectively) by the people who are invading my home, and cannot bring themselves to care because they have a MUCH bigger crime problem than a few home invaders.

[FaxModem1]

That's where you do me a disservice, as it isn't my house they're tearing up, it's my yard. Or the Back 9 that I only visit once a year. I have every reason to be angry someone is digging up my flower garden, and its worth talking about. Which we do, because they decide to dress like me, as I won't talk to them otherwise, then everything goes to hell because my daughter burns down their truck, with maybe some people in it.


Or you know, some guys come onto your farm in the middle of nowhere, mining for gold, because your house is hidden in the forests, and they don't know you're there, or that you own the land. You ignore them. They eventually spot you, realize what they've done, and try to talk to you about it. You continue to ignore them. You react violently with shots to the face and unwillingness to talk to them, until they come with people dressed as you, looking like you, in your language, who explain what they're trying to do and what they want to achieve. They offer you anything you want, and you say no, but you are curious about what they have. You even make friends with one of them, as long as she continues to dress like you and doesn't show you that she's different. Your daughter suddenly leaves and sets fire to their mining equipment, because your dead dog is buried where they mined, severely maiming, if not killing, the people by it, and they kill her in response. From then on, it's war.

They were on your land, so they deserve everything they get, even if they tried to apologize about it, pay for the damage done. You didn't go over to them to ask what was going on and to get off, you only deemed them worth complaining to once they looked like you and attempted to talk to you on your terms. They are still mining your land, but its better to talk to those who look like you. Some of that land is where your dog is buried, so they are in the wrong for such an offense. And even more wrong for not knowing they are in the wrong.

They keep on mining, since they want the gold, and to them, you're a crazy person who burns people alive or shoots them rather than talk, and you kill them when you get the chance, since they are on your land. This goes on, until one side loses. This is why I compare it to Hartfields and McCoys. Its two groups of people fighting over turf.

To you, they are thieves, with no respect for your home. To them, you are a killer who won't even try to talk, and kills anyone who is not you.

But hey, if you can prove the Na'Vi sent ambassadors to the humans, and talked to them in non-Avatar form, I'll concede.

[Alyrium Denryle]

That's where you do me a disservice, as it isn't my house they're tearing up, it's my yard.

They are hunter-gatherers who depend on a global hive consciousness. Calling it their house is being conservative because the offense done to them is an outside context problem for humans to even comprehend.

Or you know, some guys come onto your farm in the middle of nowhere, mining for gold, because your house is hidden in the forests, and they don't know you're there, or that you own the land. You ignore them. They eventually spot you, realize what they've done, and try to talk to you about it.

They CONTINUED TO MINE ON OUT LAND. If we refuse to talk to them, they are still obligated to FUCKING LEAVE. If we dont respond, who the fuck cares? We are not obligated to fucking respond. At that point they know it is ours and they know they dont have consent after we tell them to leave by way of a shotgun.

If they then bring in security contractors and continue to mine, they have proven they dont respect our rights or person. If they then come in to bulldoze the house, or engage in reprisals after their equipment is sabotaged (nothing says get the fuck out like sabotaged equipment)....

I dont know where the shit you can even think that is justified. There is no obligation to talk or reach an agreement in the conditions you have laid out for the invaded party.

None.

If I dont respond when they offer me things, it is a pretty clear indication that I dont want what they are offering. If they continue to mine while they are still trying to negotiate, they are not acting in good faith in the first place. It is not fucking hard to comprehend.

let me ask you a question:

Do you think the RDA would have left if the Na'Vi said, in no uncertain terms after talking it through "We dont want anything you have. Go away."?

If not, then what the fuck are you even going on about? If so, provide supporting evidence.