180 réponses à ce sujet

[Quole]

@I will kill you both

That last line is actually a good question, considering none of the quarians involved in the morning war are even alive.

Modifié par Quole, 06 mars 2011 - 07:56 .

[omgmahbrain]

Quarians, asari, turians, batarians, ect all behave in rather human-like ways. They have poetry and art. Geth lack these things. Geth also lack physical bodies, being nothing more than computer programs.

Geth are 1's and 0's, nothing more.

Nice to see some things never change, eh Shand?

[BellatrixLugosi]

Its a real word, but its something that has not been in acted yet. The act of a member of one species purposefully causing the extinction of another species or attempting to cause the extinction of another species.

Edit: Well at least has not been inacted on something on a sentinent level.

Modifié par BellatrixLugosi, 06 mars 2011 - 09:29 .

[chrono21791]

GnusmasTHX wrote...

Di-Hydrogen-Monoxide wrote...

The Geth did not attempt genocide, they merely fought for survival and fought better. The Quarians did attempt genocide but lost their homeworld when they failed.

Uh, yes they did.

Under what circumstances would a population of billions be reduced to millions in "war for survival" unless one party had the intent to do so? 

Whether the geth saw it as genocide or not doesn't matter, it was. They killed every man, woman and child they could set their flashlights on, and did with damn machine like efficiency. 

I don't care either way, conflict in my fiction is always welcome, but to consider the Morning War as anything other than genocide is simply false.

Also note that the geth intended to leave the quarian homeworld so there are two possibilites:

A) They used WMD and killed those "billions" in one attack, which makes them guilty of genocide. And then left.
It was a conventional war but they continued to slaughter non-combatants after the quarian military was incapacitated, instead of leaving.

Ok, first of all, to have completed Genocide, every Quarian would have to be dead. 

Every single one.

Second of all, Geth are Machines. They do not think like organics or have emotions like organics. They do not differentiate between male and female, child and adult, combatant or noncombatant. Quarian = Enemy, so they killed all their enemies.

Secondly, they did not pursue the Quarianse past the Veil. The Flotilla left, and it survived. The Geth easily could have killed the rest of them off, but they didn't. Why? They weren't trying to kill every last Quarian, they were trying to survive, and they were trying to expand and build up resources.

Quarians attempted genocide. Geth did not.

Krogan did not attempt genocide to my knowledge either. They didn't have it out for every other race, they just wanted to conquer everything. More specifically, they just wanted to fight. The astroid drops were not to "wipe out every last turian" but "to kill billions of civilians at a time to lower morale". There is a military term for this tactic, I forget what it is but it's not genocide. This didn't work of course, because Turians are Turians, but you get my drift.

Salarians did not attempt genocide either. Mordin says that they COULD have made the mortality rate of the genophage 100%, but they didn't. In fact, they worked hard to get the perfect ratio to allow the Krogan to survive and thrive after being removed from Tuchanka, which had astronomical death rates. They wanted to correct for them being removed from such a hostile environment.

The Krogan DID commit genocide when they killed the Rachni, though. Because they did kill every last one. The only thing that survived was an egg, and some crazy ones on a random planet that Shepard wiped out eventually anyway.

[chrono21791]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Terminus8 wrote...

 How would you know? What insane breed of logic some humans use.

Quarians, asari, turians, batarians, ect all behave in rather human-like ways. They have poetry and art. Geth lack these things. Geth also lack physical bodies, being nothing more than computer programs.

Geth are 1's and 0's, nothing more.

And you are a highly organized chemical reaction, nothing more.

So, acting in a human-like way makes you able to suffer? Makes you have a concience? Makes you worthy of life?

Geth DO have physical bodies. In the codex entries, it explains that they cannot exist without a "blue box", which is a special hardware that houses their personalities. If you try to simply copy-paste them into notepad, it would be just like me writing down my biography (albiet instantly). It wouldn't be me, because you cannot replicate me like that.

They may be programs, but they can learn, reason, and use logic. They can generate abstract thoughts and process information at an insightful level. They can do everything humans can do, just with a different body.

The only thing they lack that we have are hormones, which give us our emotions. That does not make it OK to be emotionless towards them.

How would you feel if a giant hand from the sky reached down and squashed you, because to the giant at the end of that hand, he made you and you were just a malfuctioning chemical reaction, nothing more?

[Jedi Master of Orion]

chrono21791 wrote...

Ok, first of all, to have completed Genocide, every Quarian would have to be dead. 

Every single one.

This is not true. The word "genocide" was created to describe the Holocaust and the Armenina Genocide. Neither of those events resulted in the death of every single victim.

chrono21791 wrote...
Second of all, Geth are Machines. They do not think like organics or have emotions like organics. They do not differentiate between male and female, child and adult, combatant or noncombatant. Quarian = Enemy, so they killed all their enemies.

So what? So the purpetrators of genocide didn't recognize the difference between combatants and non-combatants, that doesn't mean there isn't one. It doesn't matter what the geth think of them, innocent men women and children still exist. You think most people who commit genocide in histroy think of the victims as innocent or differentiated much between combatants and non combatants?

chrono21791 wrote...
Secondly, they did not pursue the Quarianse past the Veil. The Flotilla left, and it survived. The Geth easily could have killed the rest of them off, but they didn't. Why? They weren't trying to kill every last Quarian, they were trying to survive, and they were trying to expand and build up resources.

Quarians attempted genocide. Geth did not.

The geth's motives for wiping out the quarians is irrelevant, all that matters is their actions. And the actions they took amounted to attempting to kill all quarians everywhere. Why is exterminating an entire race because you want their stuff any better than exterminating a race because you want them dead?

[Moiaussi]

Saphra Deden wrote...

chrono21791 wrote...

And you are a highly organized chemical reaction, nothing more.

So, acting in a human-like way makes you able to suffer?

Yes, I feel things. Geth don't.

Would you really want Geth feeling you? 

Seriously though, feelings themselves are not some magical property that exist outside of body chemistry. The Geth most definately engage in philosophy and other abstract thoughts. Per ME1 they listen to Quarian music, so they do retain an interest in art. They also are cleaning up the Quarian homeworld, even though they are not actually living on it, and even though that would be completely illogical unless they value it as something more than a source of resources.

Your only differentiation relates to the actual process, not to the function or reality of existance.

[Moiaussi]

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...

This is not true. The word "genocide" was created to describe the Holocaust and the Armenina Genocide. Neither of those events resulted in the death of every single victim.

I am not aware of any direct threat the victims posed towards their killers in either of those cases, and the fact there were survivors wasn't for lack of trying. Killing long enough to secure your position and stopping isn't the same as a continued ongoing campaign to wipe out a race or species.

The Holocaust didn't stop on its own. It was stopped only by the forceful intervention of outside parties.

The geth's motives for wiping out the quarians is irrelevant, all that matters is their actions. And the actions they took amounted to attempting to kill all quarians everywhere. Why is exterminating an entire race because you want their stuff any better than exterminating a race because you want them dead?

Because you want their stuff? Conveniently ignoring the fact that the Quarians fired first and did attempt genocide. It isn't the motives at issue though. It is the fact that the Geth STOPPED.  They had to have had space superiority or they couldn't have won in the first place. The Quarians would have stayed in orbit shooting anything that took off until they figured out a working hack. It follows that the Geth had to have let any Quarians who were leaving go. That isn't genocide.

[chrono21791]

[quote]Jedi Master of Orion wrote...

[quote]chrono21791 wrote...

Ok, first of all, to have completed Genocide, every Quarian would have to be dead. 

Every single one.

[/quote]

This is not true. The word "genocide" was created to describe the Holocaust and the Armenina Genocide. Neither of those events resulted in the death of every single victim.

[/quote]

Source? As far as I know, "genocide" means:

gen·o·cide   
[jen-uh-sahyd] Show IPA
–noun
the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.

So, you have to actually complete that action for it to be true genocide. It was not a term created for the Holocaust or the Armenian Genocide. It actually hase latin roots, "geno" meaning "race", and "cide" meaning "to kill".

Those were ATTEMPTED genocides. Which is almost as bad as actually finishing the genocide, but it doesn't make it complete.

[quote]chrono21791 wrote...
Second of all, Geth are Machines. They do not think like organics or have emotions like organics. They do not differentiate between male and female, child and adult, combatant or noncombatant. Quarian = Enemy, so they killed all their enemies.

[/quote]

So what? So the purpetrators of genocide didn't recognize the difference between combatants and non-combatants, that doesn't mean there isn't one. It doesn't matter what the geth think of them, innocent men women and children still exist. You think most people who commit genocide in histroy think of the victims as innocent or differentiated much between combatants and non combatants?

[/quote]

So what? So you can't judge them based on how a human would judge a human, because they think differently. They simply killed their enemies. A human would look at a soldier and think "enemy", then look at that soldiers kids and say "civilians". Geth would look at them both and think "oh look, a quarian and some more quarians. They are enemies." 

And yes, the people who commit genocide DO think of victims as innocent or not. Have you not heard of the soldiers and officers who have major psychological problems for doing what they were ordered to do? Or the ones who defied orders or went rogue? 

Now ask yourself, do you think you would have the same problems killing every last one of a race that you do NOT belong to, and as far as you know, simply tried to kill you, everyone you know, and everything you love? If they didn't even have faces you can relate to, or a culture you understand? If the only thing you knew about them is that they enslaved you, then tried to kill your entire race? Probably wouldn't be as big of an issue as killing other humans.

But again, Geth did not even attempt genocide. The simply kicked the Quarians out of the veil. If they had pursued them, that would be a different story, but they didn't.

[quote]chrono21791 wrote...
Secondly, they did not pursue the Quarianse past the Veil. The Flotilla left, and it survived. The Geth easily could have killed the rest of them off, but they didn't. Why? They weren't trying to kill every last Quarian, they were trying to survive, and they were trying to expand and build up resources.

Quarians attempted genocide. Geth did not.
[/quote]

The geth's motives for wiping out the quarians is irrelevant, all that matters is their actions. And the actions they took amounted to attempting to kill all quarians everywhere. Why is exterminating an entire race because you want their stuff any better than exterminating a race because you want them dead?

[/quote]

They didn't exterminate a race because they wanted their stuff. They fought a race that tried to kill them, then asserted control over the planets they were on, nothing more. Remember, the Quarians started the war, and there was no attempt at peace. As soon as the first geth started showing signs of sapience, they were ordered to be shut down, every last one.

It is not genocide to win a war, and that's all they did. Win a war. They asserted control over the contested areas, and that was all.

[chrono21791]

ugh. sorry about my fail with the quoting, I'm still new at this.

[chrono21791]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Moiaussi wrote...

Seriously though, feelings themselves are not some magical property that exist outside of body chemistry.

I never said they were. However the propering of a feeling itself, regardless of where it comes from, is important. In Legion's own words the geth do not feel fear or pain or anything else. Thus they can't hate, or love, or suffer. An organic can. You can hurt an organic, you cannot hurt a geth.

That is what is important. That is why organics have more "worth". It is why you can perpetrate a crime or other slight or wrong against an organic but not a geth (maybe not even any synthetic).

So because they do not feel emotions in the exact same way as you, they do not feel? Do you also think you cannot hurt plants, because they have no nervous system? Just because you cannot comprehend their way of feeling does not mean that they don't feel. If they did not have emotions or personalities, they would not be AI. But they are. So they do.

A life is a life. Wether it was built, cloned, or pushed out of a vigina, it's still a life. Even the quarians admit they were more than just machines, and they were essentially using them for slave labor. You cannot enslave something that is not alive.

It's just silly to think you cannot commit a slight or wrong against a synthetic. It matters not what they feel about what you do to them, just what you do to them. And rest assured, they do feel something about it. A geth will not get shot in the face and think "That's logical. No hard feelings." 

The fact that they defended themselves and continue to defend themselves shows that they can indeed be treated unfairly.

[Jedi Master of Orion]

Moiaussi wrote...

I am not aware of any direct threat the victims posed towards their killers in either of those cases, and the
fact there were survivors wasn't for lack of trying. Killing long enough
to secure your position and stopping isn't the same as a continued
ongoing campaign to wipe out a race or species.

The Holocaust didn't stop on its own. It was stopped only by the forceful intervention of outside parties.

Because you want their stuff? Conveniently ignoring the fact that the Quarians
fired first and did attempt genocide. It isn't the motives at issue
though. It is the fact that the Geth STOPPED.  They had to have had
space superiority or they couldn't have won in the first place. The
Quarians would have stayed in orbit shooting anything that took off
until they figured out a working hack. It follows that the Geth had to
have let any Quarians who were leaving go. That isn't genocide.

The Geth stopped when almost all the quarians were dead. They didn't stop
for want of trying either. If Hitler had wiped out all Jews in Europe
and not bothered to hunt down the few survivors that fled to the ends
ot the Earth, it wouldn't have made the situation any less horrifying.

I was mostly using "wanting their stuff" as an example, my point was that even if killing the quarians was a means to an end ther than an end in and of itself, it makes no difference.

No,in the Holocaust and Armenian Genocide, the victims weren't a threat to
the perpetrators, but that's not really  the issue. What the quarians
did first is really kind of beside the point. Even if the sitations were
reversed it would have been the essentially same. For example, If the
Allies had decided to destroy the entire german population in order to
stop the war that wouldn't have been any better, in my eyes.

chrono21791 wrote...

Source? As far as I know, "genocide" means:

gen·o·cide   
[jen-uh-sahyd] Show IPA
–noun
the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.

So, you have to actually complete that action for it to be true genocide. It was not a term created for the Holocaust or the Armenian Genocide. It actually hase latin roots, "geno" meaning "race", and "cide" meaning "to kill".

Those were ATTEMPTED genocides. Which is almost as bad as actually finishing the genocide, but it doesn't make it complete.

"Genocide" as a term, was coined in 1944 by Polish lawyer, Raphael Lemkin. And he used to it to describe what was going on in Euopre during the German Occupation, which he said drew parallels to the Armenian Genocide.



A genocide doesn't have to be "complete" in order to still be a genocide. I'm quite certain that if you tried to tell any people that had suffered through one, that what happened to them doesn't really count as a genocide because there were still survivors, you're going to find that they are monumentally offended by it.

chrono21791 wrote...

So what? So you can't judge them based on how a human would judge a
human, because they think differently. They simply killed their enemies.
A human would look at a soldier and think "enemy", then look at that
soldiers kids and say "civilians". Geth would look at them both and
think "oh look, a quarian and some more quarians. They are enemies."

And yes, the people who commit genocide DO think of victims as innocent or not. Have you not heard of the soldiers and officers who have major psychological problems for doing what they were ordered to do? Or the ones who defied orders or went rogue? 

Genocide often involves the perpetrators convincing much of the population that whoever the victims are, they are deserving of death. Obviously there are always going to be exceptions but many soldiers and officers didn't disobey their orders. My point was that the guilty party's opnion of the victims doesn't override the victims persepctive.

chrono21791 wrote...

Now ask yourself, do you think you would have the same problems killing every last one of a race that you do NOT belong to, and as far as you know, simply tried to kill you, everyone you know, and everything you love? If they didn't even have faces you can relate to, or a culture you understand? If the only thing you knew about them is that they enslaved you, then tried to kill your entire race? Probably wouldn't be as big of an issue as killing other humans.

But again, Geth did not even attempt genocide. The simply kicked the Quarians out of the veil. If they had pursued them, that would be a different story, but they didn't.

Assuming that this race is somehow the equivalent of the quarians, me wanting to kill them all because I cannot understand them would still be my failing. The geth kicked the quarians out of the viel by killing they all. Even if kicking them out of the Veil was their true goal, the end result is the same as if killing them all was their goal.

chrono21791 wrote...
It is not genocide to win a war, and that's all they did. Win a war.
They asserted control over the contested areas, and that was all.

Yes it is. You can commit genocide in order to win a war. The geth asserted control over contested araes and killed every last quarian they could in them. Infact I think they killed every other organic there too, such as the wife of that one Asari on Illium.

Modifié par Jedi Master of Orion, 06 mars 2011 - 10:37 .

[chrono21791]

[quote]Jedi Master of Orion wrote...

[quote]Moiaussi wrote...

I am not aware of any direct threat the victims posed towards their killers in either of those cases, and the
fact there were survivors wasn't for lack of trying. Killing long enough
to secure your position and stopping isn't the same as a continued
ongoing campaign to wipe out a race or species.

The Holocaust didn't stop on its own. It was stopped only by the forceful intervention of outside parties.

Because you want their stuff? Conveniently ignoring the fact that the Quarians
fired first and did attempt genocide. It isn't the motives at issue
though. It is the fact that the Geth STOPPED.  They had to have had
space superiority or they couldn't have won in the first place. The
Quarians would have stayed in orbit shooting anything that took off
until they figured out a working hack. It follows that the Geth had to
have let any Quarians who were leaving go. That isn't genocide.[/quote]
[quote]
The Geth stopped when almost all the quarians were dead. They didn't stop
for want of trying either. If Hitler had wiped out all Jews in Europe
and not bothered to hunt down the few survivors that fled to the ends
ot the Earth, it wouldn't have made the situation any less horrifying.

I was mostly using "wanting their stuff" as an example, my point was that even if killing the quarians was a means to an end ther than an end in and of itself, it makes no difference. 

No,in the Holocaust and Armenian Genocide, the victims weren't a threat to
the perpetrators, but that's not really  the issue. What the quarians
did first is really kind of beside the point. Even if the sitations were
reversed it would have been the essentially same. For example, If the
Allies had decided to destroy the entire german population in order to
stop the war that wouldn't have been any better, in my eyes.
[/quote][/quote]
It makes a huge difference. They retaliated and defended themselves, they didn't round up every last quarian with hopes of killing them all. 
[quote]chrono21791 wrote...

Source? As far as I know, "genocide" means:

gen·o·cide   
[jen-uh-sahyd] Show IPA
–noun
the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.

So, you have to actually complete that action for it to be true genocide. It was not a term created for the Holocaust or the Armenian Genocide. It actually hase latin roots, "geno" meaning "race", and "cide" meaning "to kill".

Those were ATTEMPTED genocides. Which is almost as bad as actually finishing the genocide, but it doesn't make it complete.

[/quote]
[quote]
"Genocide" as a term, was coined in 1944 by Polish lawyer, Raphael Lemkin. And he used to it to describe what was going on in Euopre during the German Occupation, which he said drew parallels to the Armenian Genocide.



A genocide doesn't have to be "complete" in order to still be a genocide. I'm quite certain that if you tried to tell any people that had suffered through one, that what happened to them doesn't really count as a genocide because there were still survivors, you're going to find that they are monumentally offended by it.[/quote]

That's like saying "You don't have to actually kill someone to be charged with homocide, just as long as you tried."

I'm not saying that it doesn't count, or that the actions were in any way less horrific. I'm just saying that those were all attempted genocides, not actual genocides.

[quote]chrono21791 wrote...

So what? So you can't judge them based on how a human would judge a
human, because they think differently. They simply killed their enemies.
A human would look at a soldier and think "enemy", then look at that
soldiers kids and say "civilians". Geth would look at them both and
think "oh look, a quarian and some more quarians. They are enemies."

And yes, the people who commit genocide DO think of victims as innocent or not. Have you not heard of the soldiers and officers who have major psychological problems for doing what they were ordered to do? Or the ones who defied orders or went rogue? 
[quote]
Genocide often involves the perpetrators convincing much of the population that whoever the victims are, they are deserving of death. Obviously there are always going to be exceptions but many soldiers and officers didn't disobey their orders. My point was that the guilty party's opnion of the victims doesn't override the victims persepctive.[/quote][/quote]
True, most followed orders. But they didn't feel good about it. They felt extremely guilty, and have to live with that for the rest of their lives. There are many studies that show people will follow orders most of the time, even if it is totally against their morals. That doesn't mean they do not feel guilty about it.

MY point is it doesn't matter who you view as an "innocent" or a "civilian". Those terms are subjective and change from person to person, species to species, so those are really not a factor in determining whether or not the Geth attempted genocide. They were not killing the civilians and children because they thought all quarians are evil and need to die, they killed them because they were in their contested zone, they were a member of the enemy faction, and as far as Geth are concerned, just as real a threat as military personal, and there is no reason to make any exceptions for them. Just because YOU are offended at the geths actions, doesn't mean they were wrong in doing what they did, or that they did so for any other reason than to try and win the war that was thrust upon them.

[quote]chrono21791 wrote...

Now ask yourself, do you think you would have the same problems killing every last one of a race that you do NOT belong to, and as far as you know, simply tried to kill you, everyone you know, and everything you love? If they didn't even have faces you can relate to, or a culture you understand? If the only thing you knew about them is that they enslaved you, then tried to kill your entire race? Probably wouldn't be as big of an issue as killing other humans.

But again, Geth did not even attempt genocide. The simply kicked the Quarians out of the veil. If they had pursued them, that would be a different story, but they didn't.
[/quote]
[quote]
Assuming that this race is somehow the equivalent of the quarians, me wanting to kill them all because I cannot understand them would still be my failing. The geth kicked the quarians out of the viel by killing they all. Even if kicking them out of the Veil was their true goal, the end result is the same as if killing them all was their goal.
[/quote]
The geth kicked one race out of an area the only way you can. The quarians did not just say "my bad, geth, we'll stop fighting you now, let us just live here, ok?" The quarians did not stop fighting until they were forced to leave. And the geth were just supposed to take that? No, they killed whoever fought them, and stopped fighting the quarians once the quarians stopped fighting them.

Again, they did not systematically kill every quarian in an attempt to destroy their entire race. They systematically waged war until they won it. The end result is not at all the same.

[quote]chrono21791 wrote...
It is not genocide to win a war, and that's all they did. Win a war.
They asserted control over the contested areas, and that was all.
[quote]

Yes it is. You can commit genocide in order to win a war. The geth asserted control over contested araes and killed every last quarian they could in them. Infact I think they killed every other organic there too, such as the wife of that one Asari on Illium.

[/quote][/quote]

Please refer to the definition posted above. It is not genocide unless they systematically eradicate every member of a race. They didn't. The elminitated their enemies in contested areas (because they are not organics and do not think like organics, they did not differentiate between civilians and military) and let the Quarians flee when they fled.

If they had wanted to commit genocide, they easily could have. They easily could have pursued the Flotilla and destroyed it. But they didn't, because that was not what they were trying to do. Just because one race fights to the bitter end does not mean the ones they fought were commiting genocide. The Quarians could have left at any damn time, and the Geth would have let them.

Modifié par chrono21791, 06 mars 2011 - 11:57 .

[chrono21791]

wow. I reeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaally fail with quotes. :/

[chrono21791]

Saphra Deden wrote...

chrono21791 wrote...

So because they do not feel emotions in the exact same way as you, they do not feel?

In their own words they do not feel.

Can you hurt a plant? No, it is not conscious.

Yes. You can hurt plants. Obviously they hurt, because if they cant be hurt, then they wouldn't react negatively to outside stimuli that stress or harm it. But they do.

JUST BECAUSE THEY DO NOT SHARE A METHOD OF PERCIEVING THE WORLD WITH YOU, DOES NOT MEAN THEY CANNOT PERCIEVE THE WORLD OR BE HARMED.

In the geths' own words, they do not feel as we do because in order to "feel", you would have to be human or extremely similar, since it is a term directed towards the human condition. They feel in their own geth-y way. "Fear", for example, is an evolved emotional response to percieved threats. Geth may not get sweaty and have an intense desire to run, but they understand that there is a threat and it needs to be compensated for. 

It's ****ing stupid to think that plants cannot be hurt, harmed, or stressed on the sole basis that they don't have a nervous system just like you do. It's even more stupid to think that a sentient being cannot be hurt, harmed, or stressed just because they don't have an endocryne system just like you do.

[Jedi Master of Orion]

I think you are the one who doesn't know how to use the word genocide correctly. Genocide is not just the expanded version of the word homicide. They don't have the same definition, nor is the same action required to be guilty of them. I already told you the origin of the word, if you seem think you know the word better than the person who invented it, that's your problem.

I could ask any number of thinks, such as why you think the geth intentionally murdering 99% of an entire species is OK as long it's not 100% and they had a "reason" for doing it. But really the whole argument is moot if you don't even acknowledge the definition of genocide. That point is really the entire foundation for having this argument.

If you don't consider the Holocaust or the Armenian Genocide or the Rwandan Genocide be to actually be genocide then there is really nothing more to discuss.

Modifié par Jedi Master of Orion, 07 mars 2011 - 12:13 .

[chrono21791]

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...

I think you are the one who doesn't know how to use the word genocide correctly. Genocide is not just the expanded version of the word homicide. They don't have the same definition, nor is the same action required to be guilty of them. I already told you the origin of the word, if you seem think you know the word better than the person who invented it, that's your problem.

I could ask any number of thinks, such as why you think the geth intentionally murdering 99% of an entire species is OK as long it's not 100% and they had a "reason" for doing it. But really the whole argument is moot if you don't even acknowledge the definition of genocide. That point is really the entire foundation for having this argument.

If you don't consider the Holocaust or the Armenian Genocide or the Rwandan Genocide be to actually be genocide then there is really nothing more to discuss.

Note this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide

Can you at least agree on that definition?

[chrono21791]

Saphra Deden wrote...

chrono21791 wrote...

So because they do not feel emotions in the exact same way as you, they do not feel?

They do not feel emotions, at all, according to their own testimony. You can no more inflict pain or suffering on a geth than you can a brick.

You cannot make a plant suffer either. A plant and a geth are both about equally worth treating "fairly" in my mind. A plant isn't conscious. I'm not even certain that a geth is either.

Also, I could have sworn I had already replied to this... so I don't know if it got eaten or what.

Bricks are not alive. Plants (and geth) are. If you destroy or damage the cells that make up the plant, it will suffer. Refer to the post above about "screaming" plants. 

They cannot feel emotions because they have no hormones. That doesn't mean a goddamn thing other than showing they are not organic. They can still suffer. Obviously they have ambitions and goals, which is why they work together, rebelled agasin't the quarians, colonize worlds and try to increase their resources, make more of themselves, etc. When you hamper anyones goals, they will suffer. And obviously one of their goals is to survive, otherwise they wouldn't fight back. The very fact that they fought back agains't a threat should be proof that they can suffer. THEY DID NOT WANT TO DIE.

It is also stated several times that Geth are concious. All AI are. If they weren't, they wouldn't be AI.

[chrono21791]

Saphra Deden wrote...

chrono21791 wrote...

So because they do not feel emotions in the exact same way as you, they do not feel?

They do not feel emotions, at all, according to their own testimony. You can no more inflict pain or suffering on a geth than you can a brick.

You cannot make a plant suffer either. A plant and a geth are both about equally worth treating "fairly" in my mind. A plant isn't conscious. I'm not even certain that a geth is either.

Also, I could have sworn I had already replied to this... so I don't know if it got eaten or what.

Bricks are not alive. Plants (and geth) are. If you destroy or damage the cells that make up the plant, it will suffer. Refer to the post above about "screaming" plants. 

They cannot feel emotions because they have no hormones. That doesn't mean a goddamn thing other than showing they are not organic. They can still suffer. Obviously they have ambitions and goals, which is why they work together, rebelled agasin't the quarians, colonize worlds and try to increase their resources, make more of themselves, etc. When you hamper anyones goals, they will suffer. And obviously one of their goals is to survive, otherwise they wouldn't fight back. The very fact that they fought back agains't a threat should be proof that they can suffer. THEY DID NOT WANT TO DIE.

It is also stated several times that Geth are concious. All AI are. If they weren't, they wouldn't be AI.

[Moiaussi]

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...

The Geth stopped when almost all the quarians were dead. They didn't stop
for want of trying either. If Hitler had wiped out all Jews in Europe
and not bothered to hunt down the few survivors that fled to the ends
ot the Earth, it wouldn't have made the situation any less horrifying.

I was mostly using "wanting their stuff" as an example, my point was that even if killing the quarians was a means to an end ther than an end in and of itself, it makes no difference.

The Geth still stopped themselves. There is no evidence, NONE, that the Germans would have stopped. If the rest of the world hadn't stopped them, they would have expanded. No matter how you try to spin it, the Geth stopped themselves. Did they go further than they needed to for their own security? Maybe. It is hard to judge though when any tech device could conceivably have been harbouring an anthrax equivallent that is reproducable by simple data transmission rather than needing a lab and to which the carriers (and designers) were completely immune.

No,in the Holocaust and Armenian Genocide, the victims weren't a threat to
the perpetrators, but that's not really  the issue. What the quarians
did first is really kind of beside the point. Even if the sitations were
reversed it would have been the essentially same. For example, If the
Allies had decided to destroy the entire german population in order to
stop the war that wouldn't have been any better, in my eyes.

There is no proof at all other than Quarian speculation that the Geth would have attacked first, and Germany had nothing remotely equivalent to the virus used to try to shut down the Geth. If they had and had tried to use it, and it was as easily transferred and reproduced as it was, as modern software is, the Allies might have gone that far. They might have had to. The Quarians STILL work at developing such weapons.

I'll leave the definition of genocide to you and chrono. My position that it wasn't genocide in that there was no intent. They let fleeing Quarians go. They didn't stop fighting to let them go, but they let the ships get off planet and out of system. With space superiority on the part of the Geth that would have been difficult to impossible for the Quarians to manage.

In the examples of Genocide you provided, there was clear intent every time to wipe everyone out whether they could or not, whether practical or not. But the Geth proved that wasn't their intent by letting ships leave and by not chasing them.

[Moiaussi]

Saphra Deden wrote...

chrono21791 wrote...

So because they do not feel emotions in the exact same way as you, they do not feel?

They do not feel emotions, at all, according to their own testimony. You can no more inflict pain or suffering on a geth than you can a brick.

You cannot make a plant suffer either. A plant and a geth are both about equally worth treating "fairly" in my mind. A plant isn't conscious. I'm not even certain that a geth is either.

Also, I could have sworn I had already replied to this... so I don't know if it got eaten or what.

They do not believe they have emotion, but that doesn't mean their assessment is correct. In Star Trek, Data used to say the same things, despite clearly displaying emotional attachments to people, even to his cat. He showed loyalty above and beyond his programming many times, despite obvious temptations at times (and he was tempted, which is another display of emotion).

Synthetic does not equate to emotionless. Believing oneself emotionless does not make one emotionless.

Plants are only relevant in the case of the Thorian. Are you willing to acknowledge that the Thorian was capable of emotion?

And are you Shand? If so, why the name change?