135 réponses à ce sujet

[ObserverStatus]

JohnnyDollar wrote...

bobobo878 wrote...

JohnnyDollar wrote...

@bobobo878
I had to edit my last post. I said the exact opposite of what I meant to say.

Ah, well that makes more sense.

Are you being sarcastic?  I haven't debated you before, so I don't know you very well.

No, I was serious.  Before your edit I couldn't comprehend what you were trying to say.

[Nightwriter]

Collider wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...

Shandepared wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...

Violence is a grim side effect, but not an intrinsic requirement, of developing life.

True, but we don't live in a perfect world either.  (and we never will)

You're right. The world is imperfect - and yet you are saying, are you not, that the violence that has occurred throughout history had to happen in order to achieve that imperfect world.

A good point, night. I think we both now that humans are perfectly able to progress without violence. Violence may be a catalyst for technology sometimes, but a lot of technology results from the innocuous competition between companies.

Yes, we are very much in agreement.

I think that, as people, we look back at history and see so much violence, and how that violence has molded our history - either for worse or for better - that we assume violence is a necessary and immovable element of human life and progress.

But you're right. It doesn't have to be.

[cruc1al]

JohnnyDollar wrote...

bobobo878 wrote...

JohnnyDollar
wrote...
Ridiculing the idea of oil being cost-effectively renewable
assumes that it will always need to be renewable. In the context of
this debate.

Just because a resource is not used, that
does not mean it is infinite.

True, but it also does
prove that it is finite.

Edit:  Correction, it also does not
prove that is is finite.

Let's make this clear.

Fact 1: At any given time, the amount of oil cannot be infinite because Earth > oil.
Fact 2: Oil reserves replenish slowly in high pressures within Earth's crust.

So, the amount of oil must always be finite at any given time, but if oil reserves are used at exactly the same rate as they replenish, they are infinite for practical purposes. Saying oil reserves are infinite is technically not correct, but just another way of saying that the use of oil in such a scenario is sustainable. The reason it's not technically correct is that it would require the sustainable use of oil reserves to continue for an infinite amount of time.

But, there is a third fact, which is the reason I am inclined to believe there are geologists who claim usable oil reserves may run in some decades out if we keep burning them at the current rate, and that is:

Fact 3: Oil reserves are currently burned more quickly than they replenish because atmospheric CO2 builds up more quickly than it is absorbed by photosynthetic organisms (which become fossil fuels over geological time).

Modifié par cruc1al, 29 mars 2010 - 01:20 .

[the_last_krogan]

i dont want to understand the reapers

I JUST WANT TO KILL THEM

[Spartas Husky]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Jedi Sensei wrote...

What is the meaning of life to a Reaper?

It's to pillage, destroy and burn then go to sleep.

Pretty similar to our real lives.

HAHAHAHAHAHA, BRAVO BRAVO, god finally some sane words.


If anybody has realized, this game isn't about who is good or who is evil, is just about saving your own hide and those you care for, nothing more.

[Bucky_McLachlan]

The idea of the Reapers is great
and it is a very original one.

I like them just fine but they're not really that original at all. The Reapers are an homage to Cthulhu, their squid-like design, indoctrination, and their tendency to harvest all life in the galaxy on a repeating cycle is all derived from the Lovecraft mythos.

In fact the Charon Relay has the incriptions of "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" on it.

The homage isn't really that subtle anyways, to be honest.

Modifié par Bucky_McLachlan, 29 mars 2010 - 03:05 .

[Andrew_Waltfeld]

Bucky_McLachlan wrote...

The idea of the Reapers is great
and it is a very original one.

I like them just fine but they're not really that original at all. The Reapers are an homage to Cthulhu, their squid-like design, indoctrination, and their tendency to harvest all life in the galaxy on a repeating cycle is all derived from the Lovecraft mythos.

nothing is very orginal nowadays. Everything has homages to everything, I have long since stop expecting anything orginal and just hope for some new twists.

Modifié par Andrew_Waltfeld, 29 mars 2010 - 03:05 .

[ObserverStatus]

Bucky_McLachlan wrote...

The idea of the Reapers is great
and it is a very original one.

I like them just fine but they're not really that original at all. The Reapers are an homage to Cthulhu, their squid-like design, indoctrination, and their tendency to harvest all life in the galaxy on a repeating cycle is all derived from the Lovecraft mythos.

In fact the Charon Relay has the incriptions of "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" on it.

The homage isn't really that subtle anyways, to be honest.

Squid like? What are you talking about? The reapers look more like human head lice.

[Bucky_McLachlan]

Okay let me break it down for you:



This is head lice:





This is a squid:





This is a reaper:





This is Bob Ross making a painting about you:

[Revanesque]

And this is a cuttlefish:

[Halmiriliath]

Shandepared wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...

Yeah. And we slaughtered the Native Americans to bring "enlightenment" to the new world.

You can't argue with results. If not for us the Americas would still be in the stone-age. Progress can be painful.

Shandepared wrote...

Yeah, but without them we wouldn't have civilization. This must be an incredibly uncomfortable fact for you to come to terms with. The Romans spread their empire, that is their advanced civilization, through war and conquest. Countless people were slaughtered by their legions, cultures destroyed. It was no different with the Americas. The only twist was that native peoples did not have immunities to European diseases. That is what killed the overwhelming majority of them. Regardless, if the Europeans hadn't invaded and settled the Americas they would still be as undeveloped today as they were back then.

And here I must bring your startlingly disturbing assertions and your mangling of history (once again) up short. What on earth is civilisation to you? Having a bigger weapon than one's neighbours, and the technology to keep those you've repressed alive? Who are we to decide that the Native American way of life is inferior to 'ours'? Just because they didn't have an effective means of resistance to the Europeans and the scientific knowledge - that was very much a work in progress at this point - of their conquerors, it does not mean that their lives were of less worth to humanity as a whole. The Roman Republic - and later, the empire - expanded through conquest but also through diplomacy. They didn't methodically butcher those they conquered - they made a show of strength against those who resisted and assimilated those who sought peace. But their empire was founded on the belief that their civilisation was superior to others, when it wasn't. They borrowed heavily from the Greeks, who in turn borrowed from previous civilisations; China was a burgeoning civilisation; and the 'Celts' were not as backward as you would have us believe. You don't seriously propose to adopt the anachronistic, highly insulting and inaccurate belief in the superiority of 'western civilisation', do you?   

Please, spare us your smug sarcasm and your manipulation of the past for your own purposes. What happened in the Americas and the spread of the Roman Empire has little to do with what the original poster wanted to discuss, so save your high-handed beliefs for elsewhere.

Edit (and edited again because a re-read made me realise I was being a bit excessive with the dramatics): If this post comes across as offensive, it is because Shandepared's views - here, and on other posts - are those that I encounter all too frequently in real life. It hurts me to see the value of people's lives degraded to calculated decisions based upon the 'advancement' of the human race or a 'noble cause', whether in the past or present. A calculated, cynical view of the world is, I feel, much overrated and detracts from our experience of life.

Modifié par Halmiriliath, 29 mars 2010 - 02:47 .

[Mallissin]

OP is indoctrinated.

[PaladinXelezar]

Mcjon01 wrote...

Dave of Canada wrote...

Jedi Sensei wrote...

What is the meaning of life to a Reaper?

It's to pillage, destroy and burn then go to sleep.

Pretty similar to our real lives.

"Sovereign!  What is best in life?"

"To crush the organics, see them driven before us, and to hear the lamentation of their women."

I thought the exact same thing Mcjon...Spot on!

[DoNotResistHate]

I really think the reapers just harvest us for resources. I mean the human body is made up of all kinds of elements. Think of it like this maybe the reapers hate planet scanning as much as we do. Far simpler to just let organic life develop then they swoop in harvest us throw us in a grinder and use our resources to make more reapers and to replenish their gas tanks.  We would be like fruit too them.  

Modifié par DoNotResistHate, 29 mars 2010 - 04:50 .

[DoNotResistHate]

I mean with all those reapers they would need a huge amount of food much more than you could get from one planet probably. They hibernate so that they don't over fish their pond.

[Akrylik]

there is no way any of us could tell that getting turned into a reaper lets every individual human retain consciousness, sryz but human reaper considered harmful to humans (and everyone else, since they all have to be eradicated anyway for not making the cut of reaper-worthiness)

[abstractwhiz]

Internet Kraken wrote...

But Reapers are hive minds. The many minds that make up a Reaper all think the same, act the same, and work towards the same goal. There is no internal conflict in a Reaper. When you are melted down into a genetic paste you sacrifice everything that makes you a person. I never considered being a hive mind to be a good thing.

I don't recall anything that shows them to be hive minds. The closest we get to that is Legion mentioning "the programs that made up the Old Machine". The creepy thing about hive minds is that the members of the hive are, in principle at least, capable of reasoned individual thought and action, but are instead subordinated to the overarching goals of the hive. If the members are dumb creatures/programs/mechanisms that aren't individually sapient, it's not really a hive mind.<_<

In fact, it's probably just a mind. There's a very famous book on AI which postulates that human intelligence works this way - we are basically a collection of low-level dumb processes organized in complicated ways. Rather like the geth actually. For all we know, the geth might just be the writer's tribute to this idea. 

[abstractwhiz]

Mcjon01 wrote...

Dave of Canada wrote...

Jedi Sensei wrote...

What is the meaning of life to a Reaper?

It's to pillage, destroy and burn then go to sleep.

Pretty similar to our real lives.

"Sovereign!  What is best in life?"

"To crush the organics, see them driven before us, and to hear the lamentation of their women."

Damned Space Mongols. We should kill them all! 

[Mcjon01]

Collider wrote...

Speakeasy, I assume that while he thinks that life has no inherent value or meaning, that doesn't mean we can't attribute meaning and value to life.

You are correct in your interpretation of my words, now that I've fixed that horrible typo that was making you say the opposite of what you wanted to say.

[Collider]

I have a tendency of typoing, yes.

[Arijharn]

The only trouble with the concept that violence spreads civilisation really is that somewhere, somehow, civilisation would have to of started without violence. A community had to become a community because of an event or somesuch, if it came to head through violence in and of itself, wouldn't it be a safe assumption that it would have permanent violence as people beat each other over the head to be the one who 'rules'?



Who knows, perhaps the first community was founded when Bob saw Bill grow some herbs when he realised that Bill was A) stronger and saw some rucks in the dirt that made up irrigation, of which Bill was rather surprised at how effective it was.

[cruc1al]

JohnnyDollar wrote...

cruc1al wrote...

JohnnyDollar wrote...

bobobo878 wrote...

JohnnyDollar
wrote...
Ridiculing the idea of oil being cost-effectively renewable
assumes that it will always need to be renewable. In the context of
this debate.

Just because a resource is not used, that
does not mean it is infinite.

True, but it also does
prove that it is finite.

Edit:  Correction, it also does not
prove that is is finite.

Let's make this clear.

Fact 1: At any given time, the amount of oil cannot be infinite because Earth > oil.
Fact 2: Oil reserves replenish slowly in high pressures within Earth's crust.

So, the amount of oil must always be finite at any given time, but if oil reserves are used at exactly the same rate as they replenish, they are infinite for practical purposes. Saying oil reserves are infinite is technically not correct, but just another way of saying that the use of oil in such a scenario is sustainable. The reason it's not technically correct is that it would require the sustainable use of oil reserves to continue for an infinite amount of time.

But, there is a third fact, which is the reason I am inclined to believe there are geologists who claim usable oil reserves may run in some decades out if we keep burning them at the current rate, and that is:

Fact 3: Oil reserves are currently burned more quickly than they replenish because atmospheric CO2 builds up more quickly than it is absorbed by photosynthetic organisms (which become fossil fuels over geological time).

I never stated oil reserves were infinite, rather that you prove that they are finite.  You have given a good argument in regards to oil being finite.  Here is the problem though.  You don't know for a fact what the oil reserves are.  World estimates change over time and often increase.  We don't know what world reserves actually are.  The usage of oil and the replenishment of it does not prove it will be depleted in 30 years est.

Although I am inclined to believe that the atmospheric CO2 building up from photosythethic organisms concerning the replenishing of our oil reserves is outpaced by our burning of it, that does not provide a compelling enough argument IMO that we will run out of oil in decades because we don't know what the reserves are.  Some geoligists have also been stating these similar premises for a long time.  They have never been correct.  I don't how old you are, but you stated earlier that you read similar statements in school books.  These statements are nothing new.  If the predictions from the past 50yrs est. from geoligists concerning our oil reserves were correct, then we would be out of oil today.

I agree with you mostly. I never attempted to prove anything but that it is reasonable to believe that there are fully competent geologists (i.e. not some doomsayers) who claim it is a possibility that oil may run out in 30 years, taking into account the fact that oil reserves can be defined as all or only the usable oil reserves.

What I don't agree with is that you say total photosynthesis > total burning, which can only be false because we know CO2 is building UP, not DOWN.

[cruc1al]

JohnnyDollar wrote...

cruc1al wrote...

I agree with you mostly. I never attempted to prove anything but that it is reasonable to believe that there are fully competent geologists (i.e. not some doomsayers) who claim it is a possibility that oil may run out in 30 years, taking into account the fact that oil reserves can be defined as all or only the usable oil reserves.

What I don't agree with is that you say total photosynthesis > total burning, which can only be false because we know CO2 is building UP, not DOWN.

I was simply saying that I may be inclined to believe with what you stated in your previous post that I have underlined and highlited. 

oops, sorry about that. read it wrong