284 réponses à ce sujet

[Wayning_Star]

side note: synthesis isn't any utopia, Utopia does not exist..anywhere but in theory and the bible(s).

edit: spelling errors, one thing I'm really really good at...

Modifié par Wayning_Star, 28 juillet 2012 - 04:20 .

[Wayning_Star]

Mystiq6 wrote...

Bless my heart but I started writing a fan fiction where Synthesis just results in even more conflict because I can't see how everyone would just forgive one another for millions of years of action. The entire galaxy is practically in civil revolt. Some people are upset at what they have become and some of them killed themselves. Some people are trying to bring organics back, which has resulted in organics being grown in test tubes. This is inevitable because after a billion years, organic life is going to grow anyway. Some people are trying to fly to other galaxies to force Synthesis on them or simply wipe them out and turn them into reapers. And some people are still afraid of the reapers.

boy I hope you research synthetic diversion of organic cell overcasting and DNA copy cat recogniton. Anything goes in the MEU!! I'd check in on the advanced medical journals garnered from the reapers technical warehouses as well. It's shouldn't take you more'n a couple thousand years to read the preface. Good hunting!!

[Mystiq6]

Wayning_Star wrote...

Mystiq6 wrote...

Bless my heart but I started writing a fan fiction where Synthesis just results in even more conflict because I can't see how everyone would just forgive one another for millions of years of action. The entire galaxy is practically in civil revolt. Some people are upset at what they have become and some of them killed themselves. Some people are trying to bring organics back, which has resulted in organics being grown in test tubes. This is inevitable because after a billion years, organic life is going to grow anyway. Some people are trying to fly to other galaxies to force Synthesis on them or simply wipe them out and turn them into reapers. And some people are still afraid of the reapers.

boy I hope you research synthetic diversion of organic cell overcasting and DNA copy cat recogniton. Anything goes in the MEU!! I'd check in on the advanced medical journals garnered from the reapers technical warehouses as well. It's shouldn't take you more'n a couple thousand years to read the preface. Good hunting!!

Er, I'm keeping it consistent with stuff found in the codex, wikis and what limited realistic knowledge we have of mechanical implants.

[Captain Kibosh]

A utopia is just a dystopia with delusions of grandeur while a dissenting main character doggedly points out this ever so slight shift in point of view.

[DRTJR]

Conflict is absent, death is absent, famine in absent. That is Utopia, which is naturally unobtainable, so forcing "Utopia" on the Galaxy is abhorrent, because there is nothing to strive for. Society is based on trying to reach Utopia, the Closer we get the further the goal is, for a reason.

[Captain Kibosh]

To revive a previous thread of mine that has relevance to this topic, what about all the indoctrinated who know may have knowledge of their former lives, assuming this is what synthesis might do for them?

I called it PTSD for the victims of indoctrination.

[Xameoh]

DRTJR wrote...

Conflict is absent, death is absent, famine in absent. That is Utopia, which is naturally unobtainable, so forcing "Utopia" on the Galaxy is abhorrent, because there is nothing to strive for. Society is based on trying to reach Utopia, the Closer we get the further the goal is, for a reason.

Why is it abhorrent? I'm tired of the lesson that the media tries to pound into us; tradegy is a part of life, freedom and the risk that comes with it s more important than safety, articifial life is necessarily flawed.

Anyone that rejects immortality in favour of war and bloodshed obviously doesn't have the best interests for society in mind.

[3DandBeyond]

In truth it's all speculation as to what does happen. Personally I don't care if it results in utopia or total galactic annihilation. I have no crystal ball to predict either. I do however know what it is basically, know how it is achieved, and know what it's immediate effects are, and I know how the writers want it to be perceived in some respects. I do see that there are logical outcomes that can be surmised from what is said about it and what it means for life going forward, but because it is what it is the future it portends is one that should not be attempted.

It's forced eugenics. It has its parallels with the genophage and the whole Krogan experience. It is also a form of mind control. I don't mean some overseer asserting control externally. I mean knowledge from a certain perspective is inserted within all beings so at that point any future learning would be linear. There is only one perspective. It is like creating races of people that all know life began on Palaven. There can be no disagreement because they all know it. Belief in anything else is non-existent, because they know life began on Palaven. You cannot assert belief in anything if all things are known. And once all things are known (or a certain line of thought is established), there is nothing else worthy of learning and no way to even learn it. People learn to learn. If they already know "everything" they have no reason to learn even to explore learning.

But all thought is colored by perception. Perception is also a part of belief. Learning is not a straight path (Legion says). But just knowing things is. This is something that happens in many totalitarian regimes that close their people off from the rest of the world. They create the knowledge, all that their people know. If it goes on long enough it becomes the only reality. Country X whose residents have lived under one regime for several generations begins to form common knowledge. Everyone else is lying or just wrong. The only thing is here with internal individuality still intact (being fully human in this case) self-determination, free will, independent thought, and even chaos do allow for the belief that the common knowledge of Country X is flawed. Belief still exists because the natural state of evolution allows us still to view things from different learned perspectives. Life doesn't seek to find commonality nor do people always naturally desire this commonality. Evolution also creates hiccups in what is standard and invoke enough randomness to reject sameness. Evolution helps us keep from stagnating in thought and physicality.

In Synthesis all life would be headed toward a set vanishing point where sameness replaces individuality. The problem isn't just in giving everyone all knowledge from one perspective or adapting people to accept that all perspectives and the knowledge they have are valid, but in enforcing this through internal change. It enforces the idea of limited perspectives going forward. And eventually all perspectives will become one even if it doesn't start out that way. This is the effect TIM did not want to create by inserting a control chip in Shepard. In doing so, if it was ever used, TIM would be reducing random thought and introducing or training Shepard to form one solution and to reject all others. Synthesis would do this.

In the immediate future Synthesis also introduces the idea that imperfection in life can now be defined. Perfection is achieved through tech, therefore tech is perfection, therefore anything less than tech is imperfect. This is justification without heart, without soul, and that denies free will. Other forms of imperfection would need to be recognized if any imperfection is unworthy of existence. Today imperfection is defined as wholly organic life. Tomorrow it is defined as individual thought as all knowledge is known. Chaos has been averted, but individual thought introduces randomness and therefore chaos.

This is the proverbial slippery slope. It's the same as genocide. It invalidates a certain form of life and describes perfection. Therefore any life that is not perfect life is imperfect. And perfection seems to be changeable towards a certain end-a vanishing point where ethics are gone, because the heart and "soul" are gone, individual thought is gone, self-determination is gone, because the goal of sameness is achieved.

Utopia? No way. But it's very easy to see immediate effects and their consequences. I will never get past the immediate wrong of doing it in the first place. There's no justification merely because the doing something horrid stops something else that's horrid from happening. I'd rather die in support of life, than live and support life not worth living or not worthy of being lived.

You can never be forced into committing murder or in committing an assault or forcing eugenics on others. At the point you choose to do it, you freely did it. Even having a gun to your head or the heads of all others doesn't justify it. If the guy with the gun pulls the trigger, he committed the bad act. If you choose to do what he says, you committed the bad act. I'm not saying that it's easy to resist but I don't think it should be rewarded as if it's ok-at the very least.

In adding "happy" scenes after doing this to the galaxy, the writers have made the repugnant a total abomination.

[Wayning_Star]

Mystiq6 wrote...

Wayning_Star wrote...

Mystiq6 wrote...

Bless my heart but I started writing a fan fiction where Synthesis just results in even more conflict because I can't see how everyone would just forgive one another for millions of years of action. The entire galaxy is practically in civil revolt. Some people are upset at what they have become and some of them killed themselves. Some people are trying to bring organics back, which has resulted in organics being grown in test tubes. This is inevitable because after a billion years, organic life is going to grow anyway. Some people are trying to fly to other galaxies to force Synthesis on them or simply wipe them out and turn them into reapers. And some people are still afraid of the reapers.

boy I hope you research synthetic diversion of organic cell overcasting and DNA copy cat recogniton. Anything goes in the MEU!! I'd check in on the advanced medical journals garnered from the reapers technical warehouses as well. It's shouldn't take you more'n a couple thousand years to read the preface. Good hunting!!

Er, I'm keeping it consistent with stuff found in the codex, wikis and what limited realistic knowledge we have of mechanical implants.

that won't work cause the codex isn't updated yet, unless you've aready visited the MEU after synthisis...that's my point.

[Ieldra]

DRTJR wrote...
Conflict is absent, death is absent, famine in absent. That is Utopia, which is naturally unobtainable, so forcing "Utopia" on the Galaxy is abhorrent, because there is nothing to strive for. Society is based on trying to reach Utopia, the Closer we get the further the goal is, for a reason.

(1) Death isn't absent. The prospect of immortality lies in the future as a possibility, and nobody knows the form it might take.
(2) The picture is of a generally peaceful galaxy, i.e. without a big war. I very much doubt less violent conflicts are absent, that would make no sense. And the question is how long it will last. 
(3) The EC does not paint a static picture.
(4) Overcome one fundamental limitation, and the next challenge presents itself.

[DirtyPhoenix]

Jassu1979 wrote...

Shepard disagrees.

Shepard [to the dying Reaper on Rannoch]:
"You - whatever species you came from before the Reapers decided to "preserve" them? They're dead. They died thousands of years ago." [Reaper dies.] "And now, they can rest in peace."

YOUR Shepard disagrees. Mine doesn't.

[Wayning_Star]

3DandBeyond wrote...

In truth it's all speculation as to what does happen. Personally I don't care if it results in utopia or total galactic annihilation. I have no crystal ball to predict either. I do however know what it is basically, know how it is achieved, and know what it's immediate effects are, and I know how the writers want it to be perceived in some respects. I do see that there are logical outcomes that can be surmised from what is said about it and what it means for life going forward, but because it is what it is the future it portends is one that should not be attempted.

It's forced eugenics. It has its parallels with the genophage and the whole Krogan experience. It is also a form of mind control. I don't mean some overseer asserting control externally. I mean knowledge from a certain perspective is inserted within all beings so at that point any future learning would be linear. There is only one perspective. It is like creating races of people that all know life began on Palaven. There can be no disagreement because they all know it. Belief in anything else is non-existent, because they know life began on Palaven. You cannot assert belief in anything if all things are known. And once all things are known (or a certain line of thought is established), there is nothing else worthy of learning and no way to even learn it. People learn to learn. If they already know "everything" they have no reason to learn even to explore learning.

But all thought is colored by perception. Perception is also a part of belief. Learning is not a straight path (Legion says). But just knowing things is. This is something that happens in many totalitarian regimes that close their people off from the rest of the world. They create the knowledge, all that their people know. If it goes on long enough it becomes the only reality. Country X whose residents have lived under one regime for several generations begins to form common knowledge. Everyone else is lying or just wrong. The only thing is here with internal individuality still intact (being fully human in this case) self-determination, free will, independent thought, and even chaos do allow for the belief that the common knowledge of Country X is flawed. Belief still exists because the natural state of evolution allows us still to view things from different learned perspectives. Life doesn't seek to find commonality nor do people always naturally desire this commonality. Evolution also creates hiccups in what is standard and invoke enough randomness to reject sameness. Evolution helps us keep from stagnating in thought and physicality.

In Synthesis all life would be headed toward a set vanishing point where sameness replaces individuality. The problem isn't just in giving everyone all knowledge from one perspective or adapting people to accept that all perspectives and the knowledge they have are valid, but in enforcing this through internal change. It enforces the idea of limited perspectives going forward. And eventually all perspectives will become one even if it doesn't start out that way. This is the effect TIM did not want to create by inserting a control chip in Shepard. In doing so, if it was ever used, TIM would be reducing random thought and introducing or training Shepard to form one solution and to reject all others. Synthesis would do this.

In the immediate future Synthesis also introduces the idea that imperfection in life can now be defined. Perfection is achieved through tech, therefore tech is perfection, therefore anything less than tech is imperfect. This is justification without heart, without soul, and that denies free will. Other forms of imperfection would need to be recognized if any imperfection is unworthy of existence. Today imperfection is defined as wholly organic life. Tomorrow it is defined as individual thought as all knowledge is known. Chaos has been averted, but individual thought introduces randomness and therefore chaos.

This is the proverbial slippery slope. It's the same as genocide. It invalidates a certain form of life and describes perfection. Therefore any life that is not perfect life is imperfect. And perfection seems to be changeable towards a certain end-a vanishing point where ethics are gone, because the heart and "soul" are gone, individual thought is gone, self-determination is gone, because the goal of sameness is achieved.

Utopia? No way. But it's very easy to see immediate effects and their consequences. I will never get past the immediate wrong of doing it in the first place. There's no justification merely because the doing something horrid stops something else that's horrid from happening. I'd rather die in support of life, than live and support life not worth living or not worthy of being lived.

You can never be forced into committing murder or in committing an assault or forcing eugenics on others. At the point you choose to do it, you freely did it. Even having a gun to your head or the heads of all others doesn't justify it. If the guy with the gun pulls the trigger, he committed the bad act. If you choose to do what he says, you committed the bad act. I'm not saying that it's easy to resist but I don't think it should be rewarded as if it's ok-at the very least.

In adding "happy" scenes after doing this to the galaxy, the writers have made the repugnant a total abomination.

as  if the ancient super race of who know what builders of the catalyst care what we think, why should they care about our social study programs, they've been all through that stuff millions of years back, according to the codex and other info on them. Heck we cannot even contrive to understand it's AI motivations/progamming, much less their actual reason for the silly 'chaos' theory on tech vs organic life. They did put the catalyst up to it, in some form, it decided to modify it's program perimiters to accomidate its sentience, but not it's creators organic status...ulp Quick, gimme more implants!! Maybe it'll miss me in the confusion..lol

[DirtyPhoenix]

DRTJR wrote...

Conflict is absent, death is absent, famine in absent. That is Utopia, which is naturally unobtainable, so forcing "Utopia" on the Galaxy is abhorrent, because there is nothing to strive for. Society is based on trying to reach Utopia, the Closer we get the further the goal is, for a reason.

Wreav disagrees. I saw him taking his green eyed-Krogan army to conquer who knows what.

[Wayning_Star]

pirate1802 wrote...

DRTJR wrote...

Conflict is absent, death is absent, famine in absent. That is Utopia, which is naturally unobtainable, so forcing "Utopia" on the Galaxy is abhorrent, because there is nothing to strive for. Society is based on trying to reach Utopia, the Closer we get the further the goal is, for a reason.

Wreav disagrees. I saw him taking his green eyed-Krogan army to conquer who knows what.

"Your destiny is bigger than that of a king, your destiny is that of a traveller who has (almost) completed his journey."

[3DandBeyond]

Xameoh wrote...

DRTJR wrote...

Conflict is absent, death is absent, famine in absent. That is Utopia, which is naturally unobtainable, so forcing "Utopia" on the Galaxy is abhorrent, because there is nothing to strive for. Society is based on trying to reach Utopia, the Closer we get the further the goal is, for a reason.

Why is it abhorrent? I'm tired of the lesson that the media tries to pound into us; tradegy is a part of life, freedom and the risk that comes with it s more important than safety, articifial life is necessarily flawed.

Anyone that rejects immortality in favour of war and bloodshed obviously doesn't have the best interests for society in mind.

Do you honestly have no idea of the problems of immortality and it isn't only about war-nothing would kill people.  Have you ever heard of any conflict and horrible war that resulted from over-population?

And I totally don't get your thing about freedom and safety.

Full freedom is not secure.  But everytime you reject freedom over security you have to judge the value of life at that point.  You can be fully secure if you decide you want a totalitarian regime that controls everything.  Does that sound like fun?  Ask people that have lived through that.  People that live under freedom take it for granted because it's there.  It starts to get stripped away bit by bit and reaches a tipping point where you go from not noticing it to having lost it.  That's why people refuse to give an inch quite often. 

I can tell you that it's not a great feeling when you all of a sudden find yourself under suspicion for maybe having breached some form of security aimed at really bad people, especially when you know you've done nothing wrong.  I made a mistake once of making a big payment on a credit card.  I tried to make a purchase with it and found my account had been suspended because under the rules of the Patriot Act I was being looked at for possible money laundering.  And I assure you all I did was take my paycheck and make a credit card payment.  Six months later I found my credit had been released so I could use the card again, never had been accused of doing anything wrong, never heard one more word about it.  But, I can tell you as someone who has always loved my country, worked in law enforcement, always tried to abide by the law, and believed if you are honorable and do the right thing, you have nothing to worry about, this made me feel dirty and depressed and worried.  And this was a minor thing.  It still bothers me to this day and it's been a few years now.

Once you begin to give up an important thing for another thing (freedom for security, life worth living for any kind of life at any cost), you have given up what makes it all so dear. 

[Wayning_Star]

3DandBeyond wrote...

Xameoh wrote...

DRTJR wrote...

Conflict is absent, death is absent, famine in absent. That is Utopia, which is naturally unobtainable, so forcing "Utopia" on the Galaxy is abhorrent, because there is nothing to strive for. Society is based on trying to reach Utopia, the Closer we get the further the goal is, for a reason.

Why is it abhorrent? I'm tired of the lesson that the media tries to pound into us; tradegy is a part of life, freedom and the risk that comes with it s more important than safety, articifial life is necessarily flawed.

Anyone that rejects immortality in favour of war and bloodshed obviously doesn't have the best interests for society in mind.

Do you honestly have no idea of the problems of immortality and it isn't only about war-nothing would kill people.  Have you ever heard of any conflict and horrible war that resulted from over-population?

And I totally don't get your thing about freedom and safety.

Full freedom is not secure.  But everytime you reject freedom over security you have to judge the value of life at that point.  You can be fully secure if you decide you want a totalitarian regime that controls everything.  Does that sound like fun?  Ask people that have lived through that.  People that live under freedom take it for granted because it's there.  It starts to get stripped away bit by bit and reaches a tipping point where you go from not noticing it to having lost it.  That's why people refuse to give an inch quite often. 

I can tell you that it's not a great feeling when you all of a sudden find yourself under suspicion for maybe having breached some form of security aimed at really bad people, especially when you know you've done nothing wrong.  I made a mistake once of making a big payment on a credit card.  I tried to make a purchase with it and found my account had been suspended because under the rules of the Patriot Act I was being looked at for possible money laundering.  And I assure you all I did was take my paycheck and make a credit card payment.  Six months later I found my credit had been released so I could use the card again, never had been accused of doing anything wrong, never heard one more word about it.  But, I can tell you as someone who has always loved my country, worked in law enforcement, always tried to abide by the law, and believed if you are honorable and do the right thing, you have nothing to worry about, this made me feel dirty and depressed and worried.  And this was a minor thing.  It still bothers me to this day and it's been a few years now.

Once you begin to give up an important thing for another thing (freedom for security, life worth living for any kind of life at any cost), you have given up what makes it all so dear. 

Machiavelli gets a new groove. I'd say fear rules when we're afraid of all the rules, muchless their enforcement. Like it when it works for you, hate when it works against you as Innocense lost..is hard to retreive, like utopia.

[DirtyPhoenix]

Wayning_Star wrote...

pirate1802 wrote...

DRTJR wrote...

Conflict is absent, death is absent, famine in absent. That is Utopia, which is naturally unobtainable, so forcing "Utopia" on the Galaxy is abhorrent, because there is nothing to strive for. Society is based on trying to reach Utopia, the Closer we get the further the goal is, for a reason.

Wreav disagrees. I saw him taking his green eyed-Krogan army to conquer who knows what.

"Your destiny is bigger than that of a king, your destiny is that of a traveller who has (almost) completed his journey."

That quote is not about Wreav but damn if it doesn't fit well :lol:

[DirtyPhoenix]

3DandBeyond wrote...
Do you honestly have no idea of the problems of immortality and it isn't only about war-nothing would kill people.  Have you ever heard of any conflict and horrible war that resulted from over-population?

Ieldra2 wrote...
(4) Overcome one fundamental limitation, and the next challenge presents itself.

Once upon a time, disease was seen as part of the natural cycle, necessary and inevitable. Hasn't stopped scientists from developing cures. Even today, many scientists persue research into immortality. I doubt they will stop if/once they discover ways to achieve it.

Modifié par pirate1802, 28 juillet 2012 - 05:26 .

[Ieldra]

I'll point out which parts of your post are complete speculation:

3DandBeyond wrote...
It's forced eugenics. It has its parallels with the genophage and the whole Krogan experience. It is also a form of mind control. I don't mean some overseer asserting control externally. I mean knowledge from a certain perspective is inserted within all beings so at that point any future learning would be linear. There is only one perspective.

There is no evidence of different perspectives being adjusted to become more similar. This is pure invention.

It is like creating races of people that all know life began on Palaven. There can be no disagreement because they all know it. Belief in anything else is non-existent, because they know life began on Palaven. You cannot assert belief in anything if all things are known. And once all things are known (or a certain line of thought is
established), there is nothing else worthy of learning and no way to
even learn it. People learn to learn. If they already know
"everything" they have no reason to learn even to explore learning.

That's pure invention. All things can't be known in the first place, because the amount of things that can be known is for all practical purposes infinite, and all things aren't known or there would be no incentive for ascension. In fact, you could postulate that since the past cycles all ended after 50k years, we profit from their experience, but there's still an infinite amount of things to be experienced and learned. Also, why the hell would I value belief in anything before knowledge? That's just stupid. Ignorance is a flaw, not  a virtue,
Also, people still value different things so there will still be different perspectives even should everyone have the same knowledge (which won't happen). Value hierarchies, by their very nature, can't be known because they're based on preference.

But all thought is colored by perception. Perception is also a part of belief. Learning is not a straight path (Legion says). But just knowing things is. This is something that happens in many totalitarian regimes that close their people off from the rest of the world. They create the knowledge, all that their people know. If it goes on long enough it becomes the only reality.

There is no evidence that Synthesis is like that. Again, pure invention. Who, please, is the totalitarian who controls all perspectives? You could make that argument against Control much easier.

In Synthesis all life would be headed toward a set vanishing point where sameness replaces individuality. The problem isn't just in giving everyone all knowledge from one perspective or adapting people to accept that all perspectives and the knowledge they have are valid, but in enforcing this through internal change. It enforces the idea of limited perspectives going forward. And eventually all perspectives will become one even if it doesn't start out that way. This is the effect TIM did not want to create by inserting a control chip in Shepard. In doing so, if it was ever used, TIM would be reducing random thought and introducing or training Shepard to form one solution and to reject all others. Synthesis would do this.

See above. Yet again, pure invention. See two paragraphs above as for why.

In the immediate future Synthesis also introduces the idea that imperfection in life can now be defined. Perfection is achieved through tech, therefore tech is perfection, therefore anything less than tech is imperfect. This is justification without heart, without soul, and that denies free will. Other forms of imperfection would need to be recognized if any imperfection is unworthy of existence. Today imperfection is defined as wholly organic life. Tomorrow it is defined as individual thought as all knowledge is known. Chaos has been averted, but individual thought introduces randomness and therefore chaos.

Perfection is a different deal for everyone. Synthesis will give people the ability to integrate technology, but technology is a very wide field. There are an almost unlimited number of options. I'd venture to say that individual differences will become rather more striking because more options to follow your own path to perfection are offered.

You can never be forced into committing murder or in committing an assault or forcing eugenics on others. At the point you choose to do it, you freely did it. Even having a gun to your head or the heads of all others doesn't justify it. If the guy with the gun pulls the trigger, he committed the bad act. If you choose to do what he says, you committed the bad act. I'm not saying that it's easy to resist but I don't think it should be rewarded as if it's ok-at the very least.

If by not making a decision, I let the cycle continue, then not making a decision means sacrificing the future of civilization on the alter of my personal morality. For me, that's the embodiment of self-centeredness. I think the difference between us is that I see morality from a sociopsychological and biological perspective. It's not some philosophical absolute, but a system of behavioral constraints which was advantageous in evolution because our primary evolutionary advantage is the ability to co-operate. It's also made for a specific purpose, namely human interaction on tribe level. The higher the stakes are, the less following our intuitive notions of what is good will actually result in something good. Public decision making is by its very nature consequentialist. We only tend to overlook that because the price is rarely so high that we can't live with it. Morality is neither eternal, nor sacrosanct, nor the same between cultures or species. To assume that is racist (also Legion).

[Wayning_Star]

pirate1802 wrote...

3DandBeyond wrote...
Do you honestly have no idea of the problems of immortality and it isn't only about war-nothing would kill people.  Have you ever heard of any conflict and horrible war that resulted from over-population?

Ieldra2 wrote...
(4) Overcome one fundamental limitation, and the next challenge presents itself.

Once upon a time, disease was seen as part of the natural cycle, necessary and inevitable. Hasn't stopped scientists from developing cures. Even today, many scientists persue research into immortality. I doubt they will stop if/once they discover it.

bad part: how do we know they haven't?

[Xameoh]

3DandBeyond wrote...

Xameoh wrote...

DRTJR wrote...

Conflict is absent, death is absent, famine in absent. That is Utopia, which is naturally unobtainable, so forcing "Utopia" on the Galaxy is abhorrent, because there is nothing to strive for. Society is based on trying to reach Utopia, the Closer we get the further the goal is, for a reason.

Why is it abhorrent? I'm tired of the lesson that the media tries to pound into us; tradegy is a part of life, freedom and the risk that comes with it s more important than safety, articifial life is necessarily flawed.

Anyone that rejects immortality in favour of war and bloodshed obviously doesn't have the best interests for society in mind.

Do you honestly have no idea of the problems of immortality and it isn't only about war-nothing would kill people.  Have you ever heard of any conflict and horrible war that resulted from over-population?

And I totally don't get your thing about freedom and safety.

Full freedom is not secure.  But everytime you reject freedom over security you have to judge the value of life at that point.  You can be fully secure if you decide you want a totalitarian regime that controls everything.  Does that sound like fun?  Ask people that have lived through that.  People that live under freedom take it for granted because it's there.  It starts to get stripped away bit by bit and reaches a tipping point where you go from not noticing it to having lost it.  That's why people refuse to give an inch quite often. 

I can tell you that it's not a great feeling when you all of a sudden find yourself under suspicion for maybe having breached some form of security aimed at really bad people, especially when you know you've done nothing wrong.  I made a mistake once of making a big payment on a credit card.  I tried to make a purchase with it and found my account had been suspended because under the rules of the Patriot Act I was being looked at for possible money laundering.  And I assure you all I did was take my paycheck and make a credit card payment.  Six months later I found my credit had been released so I could use the card again, never had been accused of doing anything wrong, never heard one more word about it.  But, I can tell you as someone who has always loved my country, worked in law enforcement, always tried to abide by the law, and believed if you are honorable and do the right thing, you have nothing to worry about, this made me feel dirty and depressed and worried.  And this was a minor thing.  It still bothers me to this day and it's been a few years now.

Once you begin to give up an important thing for another thing (freedom for security, life worth living for any kind of life at any cost), you have given up what makes it all so dear. 

Sorry, I am probably not the best person to have this debate with because I do actually like the idea of a totalitarian state (I am a political extremst).

But I do agree that authoritarian legislation doesn't work in an, otherwise, libertarian society because it is clumsy and isn't able to account for a lot.

No, I reject the idea that you give up what makes it dear; what makes one life lived to the full and one life cut short better than two lives lived under repression?

[3DandBeyond]

pirate1802 wrote...

3DandBeyond wrote...
Do you honestly have no idea of the problems of immortality and it isn't only about war-nothing would kill people.  Have you ever heard of any conflict and horrible war that resulted from over-population?

Ieldra2 wrote...
(4) Overcome one fundamental limitation, and the next challenge presents itself.

Once upon a time, disease was seen as part of the natural cycle, necessary and inevitable. Hasn't stopped scientists from developing cures. Even today, many scientists persue research into immortality. I doubt they will stop if/once they discover ways to achieve it.

Yes, scientists do "cure" disease but have you ever heard of theories on Gaia?  That nature or the Earth continually finds new obstacles once one is overcome.  I'd never say it's impossible to achieve immortality but I can't say it would be for the best in total.  That's not to say that disease should be left to do whatever it likes.  But that isn't about cold calculation either.  People try to cure disease not because it affects everyone but because of the ones (the few) it affects.  Synthesis isn't about saving individuals by creating some cure to what ails them.  It is about altering everyone in order to avoid what might happen.  And might is the operative word.  The writers choose to see the reapers as impossible to beat.  That's a core problem.  It's contrived merely so that you must make a choice because there is no alternative.  I reject that this would ever be the case in anyone's mind.  Where there is life there is possibility.  Saying something is impossible is just not how people in reality would approach this issue.

Yes, the reapers are overwhelming and incredibly resilient and difficult to fight and it's not probably you could beat them but the sliver of possibility would exist within someone's mind somewhere and it's that that makes any choice a wrong choice.  As long as one glimmer of hope can exist anywhere, dooming everyone to live as its imposed upon them by one person isn't moral.  Synthesis is the extinction of whole races of people-it is genocide of a sort in its own right.

And even if today's scientists do find the immortality gene, that is no panacea to what ailments will come-overpopulation would be and outcome.  And just as the genophage regulated breeding (which is another form of genocide) and we see current examples of regulated breeding because of this same problem (overpopulation) and we do know that some babies have been killed or given away because another sex is more valuable, we can see that problems do exist.

[Wayning_Star]

Ieldra2 wrote...

I'll point out which parts of your post are complete speculation:

3DandBeyond wrote...
It's forced eugenics. It has its parallels with the genophage and the whole Krogan experience. It is also a form of mind control. I don't mean some overseer asserting control externally. I mean knowledge from a certain perspective is inserted within all beings so at that point any future learning would be linear. There is only one perspective.

There is no evidence of different perspectives being adjusted to become more similar. This is pure invention.

It is like creating races of people that all know life began on Palaven. There can be no disagreement because they all know it. Belief in anything else is non-existent, because they know life began on Palaven. You cannot assert belief in anything if all things are known. And once all things are known (or a certain line of thought is
established), there is nothing else worthy of learning and no way to
even learn it. People learn to learn. If they already know
"everything" they have no reason to learn even to explore learning.

That's pure invention. All things can't be known in the first place, because the amount of things that can be known is for all practical purposes infinite, and all things aren't known or there would be no incentive for ascension. In fact, you could postulate that since the past cycles all ended after 50k years, we profit from their experience, but there's still an infinite amount of things to be experienced and learned. Also, why the hell would I value belief in anything before knowledge? That's just stupid. Ignorance is a flaw, not  a virtue,
Also, people still value different things so there will still be different perspectives even should everyone have the same knowledge (which won't happen). Value hierarchies, by their very nature, can't be known because they're based on preference.

But all thought is colored by perception. Perception is also a part of belief. Learning is not a straight path (Legion says). But just knowing things is. This is something that happens in many totalitarian regimes that close their people off from the rest of the world. They create the knowledge, all that their people know. If it goes on long enough it becomes the only reality.

There is no evidence that Synthesis is like that. Again, pure invention. Who, please, is the totalitarian who controls all perspectives? You could make that argument against Control much easier.

In Synthesis all life would be headed toward a set vanishing point where sameness replaces individuality. The problem isn't just in giving everyone all knowledge from one perspective or adapting people to accept that all perspectives and the knowledge they have are valid, but in enforcing this through internal change. It enforces the idea of limited perspectives going forward. And eventually all perspectives will become one even if it doesn't start out that way. This is the effect TIM did not want to create by inserting a control chip in Shepard. In doing so, if it was ever used, TIM would be reducing random thought and introducing or training Shepard to form one solution and to reject all others. Synthesis would do this.

See above. Yet again, pure invention. See two paragraphs above as for why.

In the immediate future Synthesis also introduces the idea that imperfection in life can now be defined. Perfection is achieved through tech, therefore tech is perfection, therefore anything less than tech is imperfect. This is justification without heart, without soul, and that denies free will. Other forms of imperfection would need to be recognized if any imperfection is unworthy of existence. Today imperfection is defined as wholly organic life. Tomorrow it is defined as individual thought as all knowledge is known. Chaos has been averted, but individual thought introduces randomness and therefore chaos.

Perfection is a different deal for everyone. Synthesis will give people the ability to integrate technology, but technology is a very wide field. There are an almost unlimited number of options. I'd venture to say that individual differences will become rather more striking because more options to follow your own path to perfection are offered.

You can never be forced into committing murder or in committing an assault or forcing eugenics on others. At the point you choose to do it, you freely did it. Even having a gun to your head or the heads of all others doesn't justify it. If the guy with the gun pulls the trigger, he committed the bad act. If you choose to do what he says, you committed the bad act. I'm not saying that it's easy to resist but I don't think it should be rewarded as if it's ok-at the very least.

If by not making a decision, I let the cycle continue, then not making a decision means sacrificing the future of civilization on the alter of my personal morality. For me, that's the embodiment of self-centeredness. I think the difference between us is that I see morality from a sociopsychological and biological perspective. It's not some philosophical absolute, but a system of behavioral constraints which was advantageous in evolution because our primary evolutionary advantage is the ability to co-operate. It's also made for a specific purpose, namely human interaction on tribe level. The higher the stakes are, the less following our intuitive notions of what is good will actually result in something good. Public decision making is by its very nature consequentialist. We only tend to overlook that because the price is rarely so high that we can't live with it. Morality is neither eternal, nor sacrosanct, nor the same between cultures or species. To assume that is racist (also Legion).

for synthesis, I'd say the only despot around is the one we cannot see.Like the shadow broker before he was usurped, but then everyone accepted that OK, it  is the original creators, they're the ones who really want or need to come back and are supposedly organic enough to need/have that impulse and the technical know how to do it. I cannot get that the catalyst is smart enough to required sythesis to exist, he'd just as soon keep up the cycle, he seems like a predatory program that is completed by harvesting advanced technology and swiping DNA,(although the DNA part is a bit confusing.Another hint of the original creators, who could profit from DNA.possibly from creation of the crucible, can manipulate it for what ever purpose.)

[Ieldra]

Just as an comment on some of the anti-Synthesis arguments here: What I am seeing is a widespread belief that the life we have, with the limitations we have, is basically the end of things, and that because people cannot imagine how life without those limitations will be, that there will be no meaningful life beyond them.

I think that's a misperception caused by a lack of imagination, and the misperception that meaning is made by anything else but ourselves. SF literature has created quite a few interesting futures which are very different from what we know, where some fundamental limitations have been overcome. See, for instance, Iain M Banks' Culture novels. Still, life can be interesting in those places if you want. Well yeah, it can be static if you don't have the drive to do something interesting. But hey, the same is true in some present-day cultures, and if people prefer their lives static, why shouldn't that be an option as well? The difference in those places is that people have a choice. I can't see that as bad. The misperception is that there is nothing interesting to do anymore for those who want it. I can't see that ever happening.

[3DandBeyond]

Xameoh wrote...


Sorry, I am probably not the best person to have this debate with because I do actually like the idea of a totalitarian state (I am a political extremst).

But I do agree that authoritarian legislation doesn't work in an, otherwise, libertarian society because it is clumsy and isn't able to account for a lot.

No, I reject the idea that you give up what makes it dear; what makes one life lived to the full and one life cut short better than two lives lived under repression?

You do realize that in a totalitarian state this very debate might not even be allowed?  I can't believe anyone would honestly think it's better to live under such a regime.  Sorry, that makes no sense at all.  I don't advocate a libertarian society either, because I think that's anarchy.  I do think that there needs to be involvement of the electorate (not taking everything for granted) and freed up media.  The media is an example of sameness since all media has begun to be consolidated, so you hear and see the same things all over the place and in depth analysis of hot topics that matter no longer really exists.