One of Applejack’s trees was on fire.
Twilight watched it in silence for a time. She could have snuffed the flames with magic at will, but she didn’t see the urgency—the tree’s wounds were mortal. When Twilight arrived on the scene, its leaves were already gone. Some of them had fallen before they burnt to ashes and remained in the ground yet, thin sheets of green whose edges turned brown, then black, then curled into tight rolls.
Beside them, on the ground, were the apples. They didn’t burn. Twilight had imagined they would burn, turn black, darken until they were like little spherical lumps of coal, but they contained far too much water for that. Instead, the apples boiled. They burst open like grenades, splattering apple juice in all directions. Steam rose from their hissing, roiling flesh.
The flames themselves were eight feet high from the tallest branch. They leapt from root to trunk to twig, gaining strength all the while, like the tree was not the source of fuel, but merely the center of the inferno. Their heat could burn a pony from twenty feet away.
“Twilight,” somepony said. She didn’t notice who. “Do something.”
So she put the flames out. Then she asked what happened. Rarity and Applejack were the only witnesses, and they did not give the answers she expected.
Rarity was normally long-winded. Theatrical. Dramatic. Twilight expected her to go on at length, to embellish, to craft her words. And yet, all she said was. “Starlight lit one of the trees on fire. Then she ran away.” Her manner was stiff and her speech stilted and uneven. She could say no more, but gestured at the tree behind them, as though Twilight might not have noticed it.
Applejack, by contrast, spoke at uncharacteristic length. “Do you know that kind of angry where a pony stops shouting?” she asked, her tone meandering. “Where they scream and rant and rave, and all of a sudden, it just stops? And their face gets all calm, but you can still see it in their eyes. Like they, you know, just decided that screaming ain’t enough. That kind of angry that says, ‘I’ve made a decision. I’m going to do something.’”
“I know that kind of angry,” Twilight said.
“Well, that was Starlight. It was Starlight, and she lit a tree on fire, and…” Applejack swallowed. “I didn’t know it was going to stop there.”
“I know,” Twilight said. “I know.”
“She could have, Twi.”
“I know.”
Twilight asked them other questions: what were they talking about before, what were the circumstances, what exactly did Starlight say, where did she go. She called off the idea of a search party, on the basis that what guards Ponyville had wouldn’t be able to do anything with Starlight in the unlikely event they caught her. Besides, Starlight was one of the few unicorns in Equestria capable of teleporting themselves great distances. If she wanted to leave Ponyville, she would already be gone.
But she wasn’t gone. Twilight found her that evening, curled up on the hill where the two of them went to lie under the stars.
It was a new moon that night. The stars were gorgeous, but the world was dark, and Twilight didn’t see Starlight until she nearly stepped on her. Given that she’d been using the glow of her horn to navigate, she knew Starlight must have been able to see her coming a mile away.
But Starlight didn’t run. She hadn’t even bothered getting up. She lay in the grass on her back and looked at the sky, like this were no more than a social outing, where Twilight might bring a telescope and some tea.
Twilight waited for her to run, to fight, or perhaps just to speak. But Starlight did none of those things, and eventually, the silence grew too long. “You’re in a lot of trouble back in Ponyville.”
“Mmhmm,” Starlight said, her voice distant and soft. “You can go ahead and blast me with the Elements of Harmony. Or lock me in Tartarus, if you prefer. I’m not going to struggle.”
“It didn’t have to be this way.” Twilight let out a long, slow breath, and when Starlight didn’t respond, she settled down into the grass beside her. Starlight rolled her head to watch as Twilight tried to get comfortable.
She still didn’t know what to do with her wings when she was lying on her back. Squirming, shifting, flexing, nothing would make them quite fit. “Applejack said you were talking about diamond dogs.”
“They were stealing from her orchard,” Starlight explained. “So she and a bunch of her neighbors ran them off. I explained that most of the diamond dogs I’ve seen lately at the edge of town had visible ribs. They’re malnourished. And fruit isn’t really great food for them, the same way it isn’t for normal dogs. If they’re stealing apples, it’s probably because they’re hungry. Desperate.”
“I could do something about that.”
“You could,” Starlight agreed. “Applejack could do something about that. She could leave out eggs and milk and other things they can actually survive on. Rarity could do something about that. She could help them find gems they can trade to Ponyville for food.”
It was Twilight’s turn to be silent, as the two of them watched the stars roll past. Given the time of night, The Chariot was high in the sky. Twilight could trace the imaginary line between the stars, forming the constellation in her mind. The air was chill, and while Twilight’s pegasus character protected her from any discomfort, Starlight shivered in a sudden breeze.
“But they wouldn’t,” Starlight went on. “It was very sad, they said, and somepony should do something about it. But it wasn’t their problem. They don’t know any diamond dogs.”
“So you lit one of Applejack’s trees on fire and implied the two of them might be next?”
“I didn’t say anything like that.”
Twilight turned her head to look at Starlight. “Your eyes did.”
A sharp intake of breath let Twilight know she’d hit the mark. Starlight laughed, tensed, bit her lip. “I got angry,” she said, her voice stiff and reedy, as though she might laugh again at any moment. “I got angry, Twilight. What else was I supposed to do?”
Without waiting, she went on. “They’re people. They’re people like you and like me, only somehow in Applejack’s eyes, they’re worth less. In Rarity’s eyes, they’re worth less. Oh, sure, they don’t have anything against diamond dogs. They’re not bigots. But love isn’t the absence of hate. So they wouldn’t help. They don’t think it matters. Not the way a pony’s life matters. Not the way a real person’s life matters. Because the diamond dogs are strange and foreign and far away and they don’t suffer where the two of them have to watch. So it doesn’t count.”
She gritted her teeth, looking off into the grass. “I reread my manifesto. The one I wrote in Our Town. I keep rereading it, because I can see what’s wrong with it and where I made so many mistakes, but there are also so many parts of it that are right, and I don’t know how to separate the right from the wrong. And one of the good parts was, page forty, second paragraph.”
She did laugh again. Then she quoted herself: “‘Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a pony.’”
“It can’t work that way, Starlight. The world is unjust sometimes. That’s just how it is.”
“No. It’s not,” Starlight said. “Those diamond dogs at the edge of town. The ones going hungry. They’re not suffering because that’s just how it is. They’re suffering because a specific set of ponies decided not to help them. And it’s all that way. When we say, the world is naturally unfair, what we mean is we’re not prepared to accuse the ponies responsible.”
“You think I should accuse Rarity and Applejack? Of what?” Twilight scoffed. “Being bad ponies?”
“They’re letting an innocent creature starve because they can’t be bothered. In what sense is that not being a bad pony?”
“And if they helped the diamond dogs, what’s next? You’ll blame them for not helping the yaks? Or the changelings? Or for not helping rehabilitate the stormguard, or rebuild the goblin lands? Where does it end?”
“Well if they did help the diamond dogs,” Starlight’s tone took an edge, “and the yak, and the changelings, and if they did rehabilitate the stormguard, and rebuild the goblin lands, and give aid to griffonstone, and teach disadvantaged earth ponies to read, and all the other things they could do, then I guess,” she snarled out the words, “this ends with a world that isn’t so fucking terrible!”
Her breath came out in short gasps. She shuttered in the grass. “Maybe the reason the world is so awful is because we make it awful. Did you ever think about that? Maybe that’s how it ends.”
“You’re getting angry again.”
“I know. I know, I…” Starlight sniffled, rolling away from Twilight and tucking her legs around herself. “I’m sorry.”
Twilight let out a soft, “Mmm,” so Starlight would know she heard, and then took her time considering her reply. As another chill wind blew over the hill, she asked, “You know they’re not bad ponies, right?”
“I’m not sure I do know that. No.” Starlight’s voice was tight. “Am I wrong? Am I wrong that they should care?”
“Charity begins at home,” Twilight said. “Maybe it would be good, if I could be friends with every creature in the world. But I can’t be. Nopony can. And that means there will always be creatures in the world I care about more than others. And that means Rarity and Applejack and Pinkie and Shining and… and you, get special treatment. Because that’s what caring means. I care about you because I want to help you, more than I would a stranger.”
Twilight gestured up at the sky with a hoof, even though she knew Starlight couldn’t see. “And, should I grow my circle of friends? Yes, of course. Should I take the time to be charitable to ponies who aren’t my friends? Yes, of course. And should I feel empathy for the pain of creatures I don’t know personally? Yes. Yes, Starlight. I should. But there will be times I treat you better than I would other ponies, because you’re my friend. And to those other ponies, if your special treatment seems unfair?”
She shrugged. “That’s life.”
“That’s selfishness.” Starlight sneered. “You’re giving to the ponies it feels good to give to, instead of to the ones who need your kindness.”
“I’m giving to the ones for whom my kindness means something. A judge could say, given your case history, your psychological profile, and current legal best-practices, you’re better suited to rehabilitation than punishment. Or I could take the time to come out here and chat with you, instead of shooting you with lasers. And from the practical perspective they’re the same thing, but I’d bet the second one means more to you.”
Starlight sniffled. “It does.”
“It means more because I love you.” Twilight paused. “I mean, platonically.”
“I knew what you meant.”
“Okay.” Twilight rustled her wings again. “It’s the same way for everypony, Starlight. Charity isn’t just giving the thing or the act. It’s kindness and friendship and community. I could go volunteer at a soup kitchen in Canterlot and hand out a thousand meals, or I could give Pinkie Pie half of my sandwich because I can see she’s sad. And the second one is better. It means more.”
Twilight lifted a hoof above her head, obscuring part of The Chariot. With the vehicle itself covered, only Celestia’s part of the formation was visible. “I’d rather get limited help from the ponies who truly care about me, than unlimited help from some cold unfeeling social machine.”
“You said,” Starlight mumbled, “that giving Pinkie Pie a sandwich when she’s sad means more than handing out a thousand meals to creatures you don’t know. But this whole chat started because creatures go hungry. What if those thousand meals were for creatures that were starving to death? Does Pinkie’s smile mean more than their lives?”
“You’re leaping to conclusions. All you know is that a few diamond dogs looked a little thin. You don’t know they’re actually starving.”
“No,” Starlight said. “And you don’t know either. Because you didn’t care enough to ask. And I’m sorry, Twilight, but right now, I think I hate you for it.”
She laughed again, and bit off the words. “I’m sorry. You’ve been very kind to me, with everything I did.”
“There will have to be consequences for this. Significant ones.” Twilight let out a small breath. “But, consequences befitting a powerful unicorn who struggles to control her emotions. Not a criminal. You didn’t mean any harm.”
And Starlight whispered, “Thank you.”
“Heh.” Twilight let out a little breath, and paused to watch a shooting star fly zip across the dark sky above. “I believe you, you know. That you care about them. You care about everypony, sometimes to the point that it’s disabling. You care so much you can’t control yourself.” She glanced at Starlight. “Have you tried caring just a little bit less?”
“I can’t. I can’t control how much something matters.”
“Well, I don’t think Rarity and Applejack can either.”
Starlight froze for a moment, then she lifted her head, and looked back over her shoulder at Twilight. But Twilight was still staring up at the stars.
“Let’s stay here for a bit,” Twilight said, “before we head back to Ponyville.”
And together, they watched the shooting stars go by.
Ooh, that last counterargument of Twilight's is a devastating one
The there was a pony bible, this chapter deserves inclusion.
Are these the same Diamond Dogs that try to make Rarity a slave? That doesn't mean starvation is an appropriate response, but context like that is pretty important.
twilight never answered starlights question about if pinkie's smile meant more than the lives of starving creatures. I really don't know which way to go with this. I can see that what starlight wants is not very practical or maybe even impossible, but I can't say she is wrong for wanting it. I feel like I do not agree with twilight completely but I can see some of her points, honestly for the question of helping your friends vs helping many more strangers, why not do both?
Also, I really admire that you two wrote and released this, after talking about how the philosophical difference of opinion was a bit of a stumbling block for you for the idea. This was a really good way to show that and work through it.
"Only for you, though, Starlight. No consequences for Applejack or Rarity, even though we agreed that both sides have relevant points and nopony is totally blameless in the matter."
Now, there's a plausible argument that Applejack's tree burning down counts as a consequence. But there's consequences, and then there's consequences. An isolated act of vigilanteism just isn't the same as a formal punishment from a legitimized authority. There's more likely to be significant community pushback against one than the other, for instance. And either way, Rarity still gets away with it.
I'm so very happy to see another of these chapters. Seeing Starlight and Twilight just talk, offering their different perspective, disagree and explore those disagreements without ever devolving into actual argument...it's a joy. I truly wish real-life clashes of opinion on such important topics could be handled the way these two ponies go about it.
It doesn't even really matter on which side of the debate I end up agreeing, or if I end up landing somewhere in the middle. I'm just happy to have witnessed these debates occur, and form my own opinion afterwards.
Please let there be more like this to come! This amazing unique friendship you've crafted between Twilight and Starlight is too unique and beautiful to leave a single ounce of potential untapped!
This is the key fallacy. The assumption she makes its that the emotion of caring matters more than the practical help given. And so, because she can't personally care about the entire world, there's no way to help them.
But we (and ponies) live in a society of institutions. Governments, companies and charities that operate on a huge scale. These organisations inevitably have a massive effect on the lives of a great many people. Giants have heavy footprints. Your government, whichever one that is, has an effect on millions of lives. Those of us who are lucky enough to have a say in these organisations' policies, whether by voting or spending, get to decide whether that effect is good or bad.
“No society can legitimately call itself civilized if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.” — Aneurin Bevan
In Britain, we have a National Health System that tries to ensure any sick person is able to get treatment. It doesn't matter if they can afford to pay, or if they have friends or family who care for them.
It's not perfect. It struggles with limited resources, and with repeated governments using it for their own games. But it does real good for millions of people. And no single person had to shoulder the cost of that alone. Nobody is expected to personally care for every single person in the world. We each just need to contribute a certain about to the pot, and a great deal of good is done. And here's the real kicker: the NHS costs less per head than the American system.
“I can't change the entire world.”
One person can't do everything. We can make a difference to the entire world, by working together. That's what friendship means.
"watch a shooting star fly zip across"
Is this some insect called a shooting star fly, that here is zipping, or should only one of those words be there?
An interesting chapter, though that's unsurprising for this story.
The flaw in Starlight's reasoning that most stands out to me is this:
"When we say, the world is naturally unfair, what we mean is we’re not prepared to accuse the ponies responsible."
If a stone falls from a cliff and kills a good pony while a less-good one is unharmed next to them, who is responsible for that? Will you accuse ponies who might have prevented a stone from falling at all? Would you have done the same if the stone had been "fairer" and killed the less-good pony?
There are many injustices that can be laid and the ground-touching extremities of sapient beings, but accidents and simple bad luck still happen. To say that every unfairness must have a culprit is likely to impair efforts to accept or mitigate those cases that have none, and furthermore it gives ill-willed or simply frightened people cause to blame bad luck on their disliked, envied, or just odd neighbors.
On the other hand:
"I’d rather get limited help from the ponies who truly care about me, than unlimited help from some cold unfeeling social machine."
Yes, but if you needed help, would you rather have the cold unfeeling social machine, or nothing at all? That one can't help everyone outside of one's personal circle doesn't mean one should seek to help no one outside of one's personal circle, and while a state-run soup kitchen may not be as good as a welcoming friend's kitchen, it's far better than a garbage bin in a cold alley.
Twilight, Applejack, and Rarity aren't bad ponies; they're doing less for the diamond dogs than they could and in at least some views should, but I'm sure Starlight could have convinced them, using their ties of friendship, to do more than they were to help.
Starlight isn't a bad pony either, with a laudable concern for others and a desire to help the disadvantaged, but she here lets it overwhelm her to the point it acts against itself; setting that tree of fire and scaring Applejack and Rarity is a case of Starlight herself doing less than she could to help the diamond dogs, since it is of no direct benefit to them and has burnt some of her own social capital with the people she's best positioned to get helping. Some help to the diamond dogs may still result from this, but I doubt it will be as enthusiastic or well-disposed towards them; after all, among other things, many ponies may now be inclined to feel that "getting one of Applejack's trees burned down" is actually the fault of the diamond dogs, since that may be easier than putting the full blame on Starlight.
So we have a nice and interestingly morally complex situation here where neither character is wholly wrong nor right. :D
Yeah, Twilight's full of shit. Curse you for making me agree with Starlight.
9776142
Applejack grew trees that fed the Diamond Dogs (at least for a little bit). Starlight set one of those trees on fire.
Just sayin'.
I'd probably have more sympathy for Glimmer of she'd actually tried to help the Diamond Dogs (or anyone else, really) instead of attacking the only people who care enough to call her a friend. But she didn't, and so I don't.
9776159
Don't think that passed me by. Everything is terrible!
9776161
A bunch of ponies and other creatures are all busily doing things all of which can help in various ways, and they're at cross purposes and still mostly don't light the world and watch it burn. They're talking, they're coping, they're dealing with stuff that is sometimes challenging and upsetting.
Everything is wonderful… kind of.
I suggest they keep trying, and that they don't let their inability to understand each other, stop 'em.
Nearby trees not to be burned or at least singed?
Or Starlight Glimmer.
Well, I'd say that phrase prescribes bringing down supposed evil guy who's fucking those dogs up for sure. But she's gonna have very hard time arguing definition of justice that specifically prescribes giving your stuff away. After all, no one likes taxes, especially sporadic ones.
She surely doesn't need help all that much.
This was an incredibly composed chapter, but given the authors, I'm not surprised. The best debates allow the audience to draw their own conclusions from the arguments presented, which I feel this succeeds in. Starlight was only punished for the burned tree, not her opinions.
9776191
No taxes, no public works. No taxes, no one gets any help from the Crown. No taxes, no maintenance. Everything falls to shit, people slip through cracks a mile wide, morale plummets insanely from the societal issues cropping up from this, and then the people start clamoring to have these things anyway - clamoring to the Crown who has no financial strength to provide these things that the people refuse to pay taxes to in this hypothetical. In a way, appropriately-collected taxes are justice simply because of how it is used (and hopefully not misused), which is for the good of everyone - especially those who need assistance, which could be 'you' the next day.
By holding the greatest financial power, the Crown also prevents the wealthy elite from occupying that slot and becoming the de facto leaders of Equestria simply because they provide the financial ability for all these things the Crown would not be if not for taxes. This way, everyone contributes, and everyone stands to benefit - either directly or indirectly, and protects from the corrupt and wealthy performing a takeover of practical governance.
9776273
I'm not sure I get your point here.
I'd like to go off-topic a bit and wonder how much Starlight actually believed her own press. It's not the fact that she was lieing about having a Cutie Mark; she also made a point of living alone. not just alone; she's the only person living alone when everyone could have their own house and she's the only one with two stories. And she wasn't just hiding her Cutie Mark, she did her mane up special and did plenty of other, subtle things that differentiated her from them in the long run.
I've always thought that Our Town was less about Cutie Marks and more about Starlight's abandonment issues, which were then magnified by the town's subsequent face-heel-turn. And as an extension, her impulsive magical outburst were both subconscious attempts to prove that she's powerful and therefore worthwhile; and testing boundaries to see if Twilight is going to turn away from her.
The funny thing is, this is one of those quotes where the meaning has become inverted over time. The original meaning is that charity begins in the home in the sense that charity is cultivated in the home. That we learn charity, as children, from our parents in order to practice charity later, outside the home.
And yet... The way Twilight uses it here is not incorrect either. People do care more about who they're close to. Of course they do. That's just natural, and to rail against it is foolish. It's like saying the world would be better if everybody could manifest a cooked meal by waggling their fingers - it might be true, but it's not a realistic goal, and so wishing for it does no good to make the world better than it is. Like Starlight burning down the tree, it makes no useful progress.
At the same time, Twilight is also wrong, because,
well... No. It doesn't mean more. It might be easier, more comfortable, to make somebody smile when they're your friend, but that doesn't mean the smiles of those going to soup kitchens means less. Hell, if they're going to soup kitchens in the first place they're probably in dire enough straits that the alleviation of their suffering will be all the more meaningful.
Mmf. As ever, you write a thought-provoking piece with a lot of moving parts.
God, this is such horse shit. I cannot concentrate on anything right now because my mind keeps drifting back to this godawful strawman vs. strawman garbage.
"Charity begins at home." Let's start by assuming that's right (ignoring 9776504's very pointed comment above, because I think they're right about that but can't be sure) and accept that it's good because it at least encourages charitability. So here's what our flowchart looks like:
Twilight is a dick. She's got great power, and is ignoring her great responsibility. She's arguing that the needs of the few or the one outweigh the needs of the many. That whole "unfeeling social machine" line is meaningless. When you're in need of help, getting it from a smiling face or a fucking metaphorical robot doesn't matter: you need help, you've gotten it, your life has now improved for whatever amount of time that help lasts. It's a fucking arrogant ivory tower argument that allows the selfish and uncaring to remain selfish and uncaring while ignoring the suffering and misery lurking right outside their white picket fence.
You should be ashamed for writing Twilight so wildly out of character. I hate this story now and I'm flipping my goddamned vote.
And of course this entire post will be ignored because I said some bad words or something, because apparently doing one thing wrong invalidates literally everything you stand for, and who knows what the statute of limitations on that is. I guess Starlight's gonna find out the hard way, isn't she?
9776586
I know that feeling. I mean, not just in the case of strawman arguments, but in the broader sense of being so angry about something you've read that your mind just can't escape it.
9776586
It's interesting that this chapter posted at nearly the same time the newest episode released in which Twilight teaches the exact opposite lesson: Approximately, "Even if you don't care about something, you should care that your friends care."
The Twilight in this chapter seemingly contends that any given set of imperative morals is invalid if people don't care, you can't make them care, and you shouldn't expect them to in the first place. Which may be a defensible in a (short-term) realpolitik way, but certainly doesn't feel very much like... ponies.
9776586
Just because you're right doesn't mean you have to be a jerk about being right, and passive aggressively (and preemptively) complaining about valid criticism of your behavior doesn't make you the good guy.
9776745
Well... that's sort of this chapter's point, though. Pick whatever battles you want, but don't expect anyone to agree or support you. Starlight (conveniently) didn't do anything to help the Diamond Dogs herself, but was angry that other ponies didn't do anything to help... so she only philosophically picked a battle.
It's actually a neat little microcosm of larger public policy arguments: A lot of sound and fury debating Important Moral Questions... while the Diamond Dogs still starve to death.
Daniel Dennet vs. Aristotle! Fight!! But it’s a fight that will never end. They’re approaching Ethical thinking from completely different directions. Starlight (or Dennet, Bentham) wants to maximize prosperity. Anyone who fails to give their all toward that end is doing something wrong.
Twilight is part of an older tradition. One going back to Aquinas, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Kung Fu Tsu. The proper end isn’t an abstract perfect world, it’s the person’s own virtue. Do that which supports you becoming a better you. And that’s you specifically, with your strengths and weaknesses and within the time and place you find yourself. All with the goal of achieving Eudaemonia — a good spirit, happiness, contentment, and balance.
It’s assumed by many that the first approach is the only proper one. It might, indeed, result in a much better world if followed rigorously, I don’t know. The problem is, it’s not how we’re wired to think and behave. And I’m always leery of solutions that require a majority of humans to stop behaving like humans. I think that was Twilight’s point.
"Alright! Now, for twenty bits--hooves up, who likes me?"
Aside from Starlight's, not a single hoof was raised.
"Right!" she said after a moment "That's it, I'm going to kill myself." She siezed a nearby bottle of pills and began stuffing them into her mouth. "Just you wait," she cried--as best she could with a mouthful of gelcaps--"The School of Friendship will become a shrine! And all the Diamond Dogs and Yaks and Griffins and Changelings will gather round it and mourn for their fallen leader!" Half the pills were landing on the floor, but she forged on. "And all the ponies will say 'Why are all the other creatures crying?' And the other creatures will say "Haven't you heard? Starlight Glimmer is dead! The Proletariat's Pony is dead!' And then one particularly sensitive and articulate creature will say--"
"Applejack darling" said Rarity "is it possible for a pony to die from an overdose of laxative pills?"
"Ah dunno" said Applejack "But ah intend t'stick around an' find out."
"I--have some papers that need grading" said Twilight, and vanished from the scene.
"...will say to the other creatures--" continued Starlight "--I mean the other other creatures--'Do you understand nothing? How can Starlight Glimmer be dead when we still have her Manifesto?' And then--"
Her Philippic was cut short as a look of horror crossed her face. Then she bolted for the mare's room.
And meanwhile, during all this nice naval gazing, all the ponies forget about the actual possibly starving diamond dogs because of how that made them feel.
Fantastic.
9775710
Because that takes a lot of resources, even if that resource is time.
Everybody would be helping if it was quick and cheap. That's one of the reasons you're more likely to give money to a person asking you directly than sending money to a charity you found online.
A person's life is the single most amazing experiences there is. Why would you choose to live a life you don't like? And why not try to make it better if you can? Why would I lose resources if not to gain something more valuable for yourself? Well...
Would you think like that if the shoe was on the other foot? No... No, you wouldn't.
There should be an equilibrium; you want a good life for yourself, yet if you're not entirely selfish, you'll sacrifice some of your [resources] to make another's life better, and their gain would (and definitely should) outweigh your loss. For the love of day and night and both dawn and twilight, DON'T donate to Kylie Jenner, please.
"Gosh, I just don't get it! Why doesn't Applejack, who works herself to the bone to keep her orchard in proper shape and who still somehow finds herself just barely above the poverty line, who takes personal responsibility for her circumstances at every turn and does her utmost to avoid asking for help whenever possible, not want to spend valuable resources that she and her family need to survive on creatures who've been stealing the very things she sells in order to make ends meet? What a bitch!"
"And why doesn't Rarity want to go work for the same creatures who once tried to enslave her, and who she has no way of guaranteeing her personal safety around? Obviously we can just grab a bunch of other ponies to keep her safe by ripping them from their own daily lives and reducing the town's overall productivity by forcing additional labor onto it's citizens against their will to assist creatures who have no issue with the idea of enslaving them! Ugh, ponies are just so selfish!"
Is this story meant to be a parody? Because I think it's asking for one.
To me, it makes perfect sense for Twilight to value doing a heartfelt act of generosity to Pinkie, over impersonal charity towards ponies she has no connection with. She's the Princess of Friendship, her life revolves around those personal acts and emotions of friendship. To her, the intent behind the action is hugely meaningful and important, often more so than the effects of the action.
Starlight, on the other hand, comes from a more modern-day perspective where the intent matters much less and the effects matter more. To her (and to a lot of us readers), feeding a thousand ponies even if you don't give a [BUY SOME APPLES] of any of them personally, is more important.
9776847
The problem there is that, as Dennet and Bentham, and the popularity of their ideas, demonstrate, there are quite a few humans who are wired to think like that. And on my part, I'm leery of solutions that require the wide breadth of human philosophy to squash down into a single one-size-fits-all mold.
9775667
I don't get it. Can someone explain it to me?
I don't think Twilight has ever been homeless or hungry, so she might not be the right person to make that determination. If you want to know how to help a homeless person, you should probably ask someone who knows something about homelessness, whether that's an experienced expert or just a hungry person on the street.
9784955 Early on in the conversation, Starlight makes the argument that Applejack and Rarity don't care enough, because if they cared more then they'd act to alleviate the problem themselves.
Later on, Twilight suggests that Starlight cares too much, because she can't leave any issue alone, and her responses to that often get her into trouble. So Twilight asks if Starlight could try caring less, so as to cause fewer problems. Starlight says she can't control how much she cares. And Twilight points out that Applejack and Rarity can't either, and so demanding they care more is every bit as wasted as suggesting Starlight care less.
9785027
That makes sense. Thank you!
"All of this would be so much easier if I could just change people's minds directly."
"Starlight, we talked about this. Mind control is not the answer."
"It would get the diamond dogs food, though. It would work."
Twilight walked in silence for a moment. Learning to emulate the way Starlight thought took awhile, but she was getting better at it. "It would get them food today. But eventually ponies would break free, or someone would break them free. It's not a long-term solution, and if you tried it, ponies would stop being your friends. Some ponies would even start hating you and opposing everything you do, in the name of vanquishing tyranny."
Starlight said nothing. Twilight said quietly, "Starlight, the reason your first try didn't work was because you acted like friendship just meant using words to get what you want instead of magic. That's not how friendship works. But you CAN fix this problem through the power of friendship. How are you going to do it?"
Starlight stared at Twilight for a moment. She stopped walking, her head bent, thinking furiously.
It took her less than a minute. "Can I have a hundred bits?"
Twilight smiled. "Maybe. What are you going to do with it?"
"I'm going to go buy a bunch of eggs and milk and fish for the diamond dogs. Then I'm going to ask Applejack to help me haul it out to their warren. That will solve the immediate crisis."
"What next?"
"They need to be able to sustain themselves over the long term, so I'll run a scan to figure out where the gems are. Can you broker a trade agreement?"
"I'll have Spike bring the fancy quills. Who will they trade with?"
"Rarity's always going on about how she's too busy to mine gems herself these days, and she hates paying shipping from Canterlot."
"I'll talk to Mayor Mare. Anything that expands Ponyville's industry should be an easy-peasy approval."
The two mares walked toward the gently glowing lights of Ponyville, planning excitedly. The stars twinkled overhead, the Chariot soaring across the sky, and the star called "Celestia's Eye" gleamed proudly.
9785317
Yeah, exactly. Starlight isn't wrong about the injustice, she's a lot more right than Twilight here. But she is wrong about the solution.
One of my favorite quotes goes something like "Ideals are like the stars - we can never reach them, but like the mariners of the sea, we can chart our course by them". Morality isn't a challenge of finding the perfect solution, it's trying to do the best that we can.
Yes, we can't help everyone. No one man (or pony) can set the world to rights, and to that extent, Twilight has a point. But when we use that excuse as why we shouldn't try, shouldn't care, then we're betraying those ideals, and becoming worse as people. And that's why I think Starlight also has a point, a much more important one. Maybe Applejack and Rarity can't help - but what Starlight resents isn't that they don't help, it's that they don't care.
So in this chapter I learned that Jaxie hasn’t seen the movie.
Good to know, I guess.
Actually I take that back, he may well have, but as I alluded to earlier…Jaxie has a pretty strong grip on a character, and that character shows up in a lot of his fics, not just this one, and he calls that character Twilight Sparkle. It’s just that that character only superficially resembles the Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
Also this is one of those serious chapters that makes it hard to laugh at the funny chapters, which makes it hard to take the serious chapters seriously.
Unsurprisingly, again, as a utilitarian socialist, I agree almost completely with Starlight here.
9837113
This this this this this!
It's hard to be a good person when not everyone looks at the world like you.
We have the luxury to think that everyone would be happy and get along if we solved all their problems. But that is not reality. Different cultures have different morals. Different people have different upbringings. Different societies have different laws. Capital punishment is widely supported some places, and banned in others; it's not that the authoritarian governments are imposing this punishment on the people, it's that the people carry out these punishments themselves if their government won't. Belief systems call for blood, and ideologies are entirely willing to sacrifice nonbelievers to benefit their own.
How will one guarantee someone doesn't take advantage of your generosity and harm you? By making them believe in what you believe? Are they objectively wrong, and you right? Does your desire to do "the most good" grant you the divine lease to impose your ideology?
Starlight is suffering from her beliefs. She can not help everyone, and no matter how many she helps, there will always be more than she can handle. Her only recourse is to convert people to her belief in helping everyone, but some will refuse to be converted and that will make them hindrances. Should the many suffer because the few won't help? Is it right to force them?
People say they're scared of sociopaths because they lack empathy, but you know what I think? I think I'm scared of people with too much empathy. Because it makes them unhinged.
This is good but one thing bugs me: why doesn't Starlight solve the problem herself?
She has the time, money, status and connections to find out who these dogs are and why they're stealing apples, and to help them materially herself as well as by negotiating with such powers that be in Ponyville.
But she doesn't. She just yells at other ponies because they're not doing the good she could very well do herself.
And this isn't a flaw in the story: that's exactly the way these arguments run in real life.