Browser glithced, textwall disappeared.
will just list main points.
1 Yawgmoth was a prick all along, but literally viewed Phyrexia as perfect
2 Not knowing happiness = absolute happiness = absolute suffering = not knowing suffering. They are meaningful only by comparsion.
4 Absolute happiness includes ability to bear absolute happiness
5 If they arent absolutely happy, they are more happy tan other races - Phyrexia's creators never stopped halfway, unlike nature.
6 You don't have to fight sth, if you think it's consequences arre OK, even if its power-hungry/viral.
7 The NEW phyrexians don't alter ideals - they just push them to logical extreme. You keep YOUR mind, exept for aestetics, loyality, and unhappiness.
8 Phyrexia's vision of perfection isn't TOO diffrent from planar. Obsession with splatterpunk, desire to spread, etc - not fundamental.
9 Phyrexia -> perfection (in it's vision, but see #8). Thus, erasing individuality is close (not same, but) to erasing individual flaws.
10 Pushing ideals to logical extreme + erasing individual flaws = more desire for self - sacrifice.
11 They won't kill you for no reason - see #10. You, in a sense, allways wanted to die for your ideals, and was given courage.
12 You keep your body/mind if your ideals don't conflict with you being alive.
13 " Also, the notion that tyrannical people who want power don't need to be opposed is profoundly messed up." Never said it.
14 Phyrexians s... at diplomacy just bcause WotC views them as villains, not as a group whose main goal is to spread.
15 They build SUPERCOMPUTERS - of course, if WotC let them to act logically, they'd achieve perfection with diplomacy, as it helps to spread.
16 If they used diplomacy to convert worlds peacefully, the would have super - sucsess.
17 Killing volounteers is inefficent - injection of oil is faster, cheaper, just as effective, and doesn't harm reputation.
18 They are emotionally happy.
19 Their existnce is devoted to spreading Phyrexia - not "horrific suffering unto others" or 'dealing misery"
20 Someone, support my viewpoint please.
21 HEAR MY RANT

oh huh morality is subjective wouldja look at that
please consider a creature with the typeline eldrazi praetor

People who try and justify Phyrexia should really consider looking into Esper, after all that's what they want. I suppose it's less edgy.

I never said they are "good guys"
I just say they aren't absolute evil - and that they have their point.
Esper... well, I'm just going to say that WotC never wanted people to see Esper as absolute evil, and it was created as "dictatorship with a point".

Phyrexia is designed as close as possible to absolute evil. Their trope is quite literally rape of the body and mind. And unlike other assimilating forces in fantasy Phyrexians actively do it in the most monstrous way possible.

Phyrexians are Cenobite Borg. If we're going to entertain a conversation on what is "good" or "evil" then Phyrexians are as far to the "evil" side as one can get.

Note: This is partially why I love them.

I think this is key. Phyrexia doesn't so much solve people's problems as make people see them as nonproblems. Phyrexians still hurt, they're just unable to care. They suffer, but cannot be motivated to act out.


Fulfilling one's purpose doesn't lead to happiness. Only being happy leads to happiness. The two may correlate, or they may conflict.
If don't understand the concept of unhappiness, that inability to understand or communicate your lack of happiness, doesn't make you happy. The opposite is also true. Only being happy makes you happy. Phyrexians are more content than happy.
I'm not sure how much weight that "Joyous" quote holds. My grasp on Phyrexian psychology is not perfect. I doubt all Phyrexians have the same mental structure anyway.

Phyrexians are very good at mobilizing resources to achieve their goals. But their only goal is mobilizing all the resources. If you're measuring them by their intent, then I suppose they aren't necessarily bad. Deontologically I guess they're okay. If you measure morality by outcome though, then they are at best amoral. Utilitarianism would call their actions bad, because they reduce overall happiness.

"Phyrexians still hurt"
Yes, but pain is pleasure for them. For them, Pain = improvement = service = happiness.

"Phyrexia doesn't so much solve people's problems as make people see them as nonproblems"
All problems are subjective, all come from your head. One could say that solving problems is a long, illogical way, and fixing your head is a more direct approach.

You have a variety of mental states, and compare them, one to another.
If you had only one mental state, it would not matter what that state is, because there is nothing to compare to. You aren't able to communicate about it, because it doesn't mean anything to you.
But if we look closely to flavor text of new phyrexians, we see that they see their previous lifes as unhappy, and new life as happy.

They are, in fact, amoral.
But if they are actually happy, utilitarianism would call them OK. Because then, their main goal is to spread happiness.
If they are not aware of happiness/unhappiness, utilitarianism just breaks apart. Like how regular math breaks apart if you start using /0 or infinity in your equations.
By the way, do utilitarianism believes that happiness is absolute ? Or that it only matters compared to unhappiness ? Or it doesn't care ?
An interesting book about subject is Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut.
Triple Contact (Eleizer Yudkowsky) is also interesting - both alien species there looks just like New Phyrexia.
Finally ! This thread evolves into philosophical discussion !

I like to think of them as basically Mass Effect's Reapers in a proper fantasy environment.

Reapers, I thought, just kill, kill, kill everyone. Like Eldrazi.
Also, my big point was that Phyrexia not just rewrites personalities, like Borg, but alter them to be logical extremes of themselves (and also loyal to phyrexia, but that's other question.)

The logical extreme of my personality is definitely not anything that has to do with Phyrexia.

"Identity: Wannabe Cyborg" ...
"I'm all for screwing with the natural order. The natural order objectively is awful. The natural order includes death, disease, pain, and starvation."...
Are you sure ?

Let's say you don't like "death, disease, pain, and starvation." Phyrexians basically don't have them in their vision of the perfect world.
As you are now, you don't work 24/7 to eradicate them.
You don't sacrifice your life to eradicate them (on a mass scale).
If you will become a new Phyrexian, you won't be a Vorniclexian natural order fanatic, or a -licker of Sheoldred's horrors.
You will be a Gitaxian researcher. Or a part of his supercomputer.
You, as a logical extreme of past you, will work 24/7 to eradicate death, disease, pain, and starvation.
Also, you will extract absolute happiness from it.
And, maybe, as a logical extreme of past you, sacrifice your life to get rid of listed stuff.
(And if you will sacrifice your life, you will do in with no regret, and in a most efficent way possible.)

Yeah, no. For multiple reasons. I care about more than just those things. In fact, those things aren't even the bottom line. They are needed for the greater project of allowing all humans to live a fulfilling life according to human values. Phyrexia is directly opposed to those human values. Phyrexia doesn't care about art, friendship, love, life, beauty, etc. It cares about one single thing: Phyrexia.

And I don't want to become a cyborg because of the cool metal parts (okay, not just the cool metal parts), but because it would allow me to reach goals that are otherwise unattainable. Sure, Phyrexia can offer more or less the same stuff, but it would also stop me from reaching, or even caring, about those goals.

And Phyrexia does have death. It's one of their major tools. They're not content to stay in their little area, they want to conquer and kill and hurt anything that isn't Phyrexia.

Phyrexia isn't the absence of disease, it is a disease. They even have germ tokens, for crying out loud. Disease is just one of their many tools to eradicate everything that isn't them.

And the Green parts of New Phyrexia are basically in a constant state of hunger. By design.

And I won't be a Gitaxian research because (a) they won't let me choose, they'll just kill me and scrap me for parts and (b) whatever those parts end up as isn't me in any way, shape or form.

No, the Reapers somehow turn all those killed people into a new reaper that embodies that now-extinct race... or something. It's not very clear. They see it as preserving the race (in some form) for longer than it would have lasted in its natural state.

Basically. Like Phyrexia, they assimilate and "perfect" out of a belief that they're doing their victims a favour, except it only makes one at the time.

"Evil" is too mercurial of a concept to state whether or not something is it, absolutely. Its all based on your perspective.