Encouraging Good or Discouraging Bad

There's a lot of different ways to try and regulate people's behavior. Two of the main ones are encouraging them to do what you want, and discouraging them from doing what you don't want them to. On the level of civilization, that's usually about Right and Wrong, or Good and Bad, though those are loaded words. That's as may be.

Usually, it's going to take a mix of both. And I think the whole point of civilization is to encourage the good and discourage the bad, but the finicky stuff comes in when you try and define Good and Bad. I had some bigger ideas for this post, but I couldn't manage to et them down right, so I'll leave it here for now.

Overheard in a Bar

"Dragons? Feh. They're not ancient magical arbiters of eternity. That's just legends. Things people make up to explain why their son got eaten by a big damn flying lizard. Dragons're just beasties. Big flying lizard beasties that eat whole villages. Because they're big flying lizard beasties, not ancient magic. A human fighting a dragon is like one of them toy poodles fighting an alligator.

"But we've got stuff no toy poodle ever got their paws on. Like anti-air missiles. And that's good, 'cause a toy poodle with explosives would make Rambo look like a sissy. Evil bastards they are."