1005 réponses à ce sujet

[KaiserShep]

That seems like something that could easily go down a rather slippery slope.

 

Soylent Petrol. Better do well in school today, or you'll be powering your neighbor's car tomorrow.

[Hello!I'mTheDoctor]

That seems like something that could easily go down a rather slippery slope.

 

Soylent Petrol. Better do well in school today, or you'll be powering your neighbor's car tomorrow.

 

Eh, something has to be done, and there comes a point where compassion and basic human decency start to get in the way of survival. That point is coming soon I think, what with our continued abuse of the Earth lessening its ability to sustain us. Cast off the weak, I say.

[KaiserShep]

I'm pretty sure Thane had a comment about this subject, if you talk to him about the state of Rakhana.

[TheOneTrueBioticGod]

This new Doctor guy is Massively, right? 

Also, people still object to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? It was the altruistic thing to do. 

Just look up Operation Downfall. That was the alternative. 

I'll post a link for you. http://en.wikipedia....ration_Downfall

[ImaginaryMatter]

This new Doctor guy is Massively, right?

 

I don't see any tiny, absolutely minute detail that would suggest they have anything even vaguely in common.

[KaiserShep]

I don't think I'd use the word "altruistic", but yes, casualties would likely have been much much higher if not for the use of the atomic bombs.

[Arcian]

I think terms of 'monsters' and 'heroes' are childishly simplistic. They don't do justice to the complexity of humanity.

Humans are complex, humanity is not.

[Arcian]

This new Doctor guy is Massively, right?

It rings bells, but I don't remember the full user name. Care to remind me, Niftu?

[TheOneTrueBioticGod]

It rings bells, but I don't remember the full user name. Care to remind me, Niftu?

MassivelyEffective something

 

 

I don't think I'd use the word "altruistic", but yes, casualties would likely have been much much higher if not for the use of the atomic bombs.

Altruistic is certainly hyperbole, but it isn't far off. The ends certainly were altruistic, but the motivation less so. 

[Hello!I'mTheDoctor]

Humans are complex, humanity is not.

 

Explain your logic.

[Iakus]

That seems like something that could easily go down a rather slippery slope.

 

Soylent Petrol. Better do well in school today, or you'll be powering your neighbor's car tomorrow.

The Proposal is quite Modest...

[Iakus]

This new Doctor guy is Massively, right? 
 

Wouldn't surprise me at all.

 

At any rate, I think we've paid enough attention to him.  

 

So how about those endings?  Terrible, right?

[KaiserShep]

Humans are complex, humanity is not.

 

I don't follow. In what way is a single person more complex than the entirety of the human race, with our plethora of cultures, languages, perspectives, etc.?

[Dabrikishaw]

Wouldn't surprise me at all.

This doctor guy isn't him.

[Arcian]

Explain your logic.

 

I don't follow. In what way is a single person more complex than the entirety of the human race, with our plethora of cultures, languages, perspectives, etc.?

 

Knowledge is the currency of human complexity, and humanity is only equally complex if every human knows equally much. This is obviously not the case.

 

Because the ingenuity and intelligence of a single human or a group of humans can shape the life of all mankind, whereas the entirey of mankind, without this human or human group, stalls completely, and vice versa. Our predisposition for advanced intelligence is something our hominid cousins didn't share (at the very least not to the same considerable degree), which is what eventually wiped them out (not extermination, which is the most popular theory in spite of the evidence against it).

 

Without these rare mutant intellectuals, we would have never left our caves. Without them, no one would have made the connection between putting a seed in the ground and a plant eventually growing out of it, thereby creating human agriculture. Culture, language and perspective is a result of the complexity of these few, intellectual individuals, which is adapted, not created, by the rest of mankind. Nearly all of humanity uses electricity, but it was Nikola Tesla who single-handedly made it so that we do. He is just one example of how the greatness of a single man can elevate the entire species to a new level. However, it would be doing Tesla a disservice to say that it was an achievement by mankind. It was indeed FOR mankind, but not BY mankind. Therein lies the difference.

 

Where Objectivists have this wrong is that they believe unintellectuals, aka workers, are a hindrance to intellectuals, aka thinkers, whereas the truth is that it is altruism and the desire to see mankind prosper that drives the thinkers to push the wheel of progress with the help of the workers, as it has been since our cave-dwelling days. While the intellectuals are the brain behind progress, it is the rest of mankind is the body that follows the brain's commands. The intellectuals need the unintellectuals as much as they need them. But it is a gross oversimplification of this relationship of differing intellectual levels to say that all of mankind is equally complex. A worker with minimal or non-existant education does not grasp the nature of the universe the same way an educated polymath do. 

 

But because most mankind is of a simpler nature, embracing such things as Objectivist philosophies and religions because they lack the capacity to understand their own nature and the nature of the universe they live in, a strict adherence to a black and white morality is virtually guaranteed. The concepts of "good" and "bad" were something we developed when confronted with predators, environmental dangers and toxic edibles. In the growing absence of these things with the development of modern civilization, we simply transfer the concepts to other facets of our life, where they evolved into our modern sense of morality.

 

Morality is absolute. But the absolute nature of morality is not the same as the absolute nature of mankind. We do not have the fortune of always being able to act morally right. Such a life would require omniscience or at the very least mental time travel a'la Groundhog Day or the more recent Edge of Tomorrow. In the absence of such implausibilities, we can only acknowledge our actions and vow to always do better, if possible.

 

For example, killing is always evil, even if it has good consequences. If a man breaks into my home with the purpose of killing my family, and I kill him before he is able to, that does not make me a good. The act of killing was evil, but it was also necessary. The necessity of an action does not make it good, only necessary. Under optimal circumstances, the man should have never had to die. He was someone's child, possibly someone's partner, friend, sibling. Even if his close family agreed that his death was necessary, that still does not make it right. The right thing would have been to prevent his violent behaviour from ever arising in the first place. But without foresight or unfeasibly accurate predictions, such a thing is impossible. If evil is necessary to reduce imminent or long-term suffering, then it must be done. But it can never be justified. There is always a better, more optional path. Most often, we discover it when it is already out of our reach. In video games, we can reload and redo to set ourselves on this better path - but if reloading wiped our memories of the outcome of the choice, one wonders how many times we would make the same bad choice, over and over again. That does not make it so that our choices are good becaue we choose them.

 

For that reason, moral relativism is dangerous, because instead of cultivating an awareness of the boundary of right and wrong so that one can understand how to move back if it is ever crossed, moral relativists move the boundary itself to suit their needs, making the boundary and indeed morality itself devoid of purpose. With enough mental gymnastics, a moral relativist can argue that any action, regardless of how much suffering it causes, is ultimately good, which makes the definition of good worthless. Dictators and tyrants do it all the time, to the great detriment of the people relying on them.

 

Morality is a system of self-imposed laws of human behaviour. If the laws are not absolute, they serve no purpose.

[Hello!I'mTheDoctor]

Knowledge is the currency of human complexity, and humanity is only equally complex if every human knows equally much. This is obviously not the case.

 

 

 

This is untrue in a great many aspects, and filled with supposition in evidence: For starters, knowledge isn't a currency so much as a capability. You didn't define your statement of knowledge, so thus it has no boundaries. Knowledge alone is not what makes human life, or life itself, complex. Especially in the way that you're characterizing it via non-definition.

 

Because the ingenuity and intelligence of a single human or a group of humans can shape the life of all mankind, whereas the entirey of mankind, without this human or human group, stalls completely, and vice versa. Our predisposition for advanced intelligence is something our hominid cousins didn't share (at the very least not to the same considerable degree), which is what eventually wiped them out (not extermination, which is the most popular theory in spite of the evidence against it).

 

And in the beginning, it might have been a mutation of intellectuals, but you're discarding a lot of the evolutionary implications of breeding and survival. It's not that 'rare mutants' guided their idiotic cousins out of the caves so much as it was them surviving long enough to breed and pass on their genes, generating smarter off-spring.

 

Without these rare mutant intellectuals, we would have never left our caves. Without them, no one would have made the connection between putting a seed in the ground and a plant eventually growing out of it, thereby creating human agriculture. Culture, language and perspective is a result of the complexity of these few, intellectual individuals, which is adapted, not created, by the rest of mankind. Nearly all of humanity uses electricity, but it was Nikola Tesla who single-handedly made it so that we do. He is just one example of how the greatness of a single man can elevate the entire species to a new level. However, it would be doing Tesla a disservice to say that it was an achievement by mankind. It was indeed FOR mankind, but not BY mankind. Therein lies the difference.

 

The next part is where you get things dead wrong in historical, technological, and sociological terms. For starters, where the hell did you get your information?

 

No one is quite sure where the ability of language was truly able to develop, but the context behind it (namely communication) has existed for almost as long as life itself. We humans have an extremely advanced brain that is able to formulate terms of noises into logical statements and provide a meaning for them. And this is true of humanity as a whole, not of a few, advanced individuals. Otherwise, they'd have no concept of creating language since they'd have no one to communicate with on a level to clarify and create a common language (which is, to this day, still not a reality). It's not 'adapted' by the rest of humankind based on a few smart eggs great realizations. This is more in line with the objectivist ideals you're railing against than you realize. Culture, for starters, comes from the conglomeration of all people in a certain area to recognize a certain life perspective and ideology/methodology that they all tend to share. No one single person is capable of founding a culture, except for perhaps a cult itself. And a cult is a lot different than a culture, as you seem to be thinking that they are one and the same at all times.

 

As for Tesla... Are you one of those Tesla junkies? Don't get me wrong, he's a very under-appreciated genius, but he was not, I repeat was not responsible for electricity being widespread among humans, especially with the implication that he was alone in doing so: you're forgetting some very important names that had a lot more success and practical invention and innovation than Tesla ever did. He had some very interesting concepts that were decades ahead of their time (championing the AC induction motors), but he didn't have a lot of independent success, and especially no marketable skills that would bring electricity to the forefront. As for who you've forgotten: Thomas Edison? Does he ring a bell? Tesla would never have gone anywhere if not for working for Edison. In fact, Edison is far more responsible for widespread mass electricity and power utilities than Tesla ever was. There's a reason Edison is viewed as the father of modern electrical engineering. Or George Westinghouse, the guy who made AC power distribution much more marketable than Tesla ever could? Michael Faraday, the guy who essentially invented the electric motor? William Stanley, Jr. the guy who revolutionized the transformer? The fact that you attribute the widespread use of electricity to one man, who wasn't even the man responsible for it, is telling of the veracity of the rest of your statements. Due to this blatant falsity, I have a hard time taking anything in your claims seriously. This isn't just something that you can really backpedal on, this is historically and factually false. Now you've set the tone for the rest of your argument. I know what to expect.

 

Where Objectivists have this wrong is that they believe unintellectuals, aka workers, are a hindrance to intellectuals, aka thinkers, whereas the truth is that it is altruism and the desire to see mankind prosper that drives the thinkers to push the wheel of progress with the help of the workers, as it has been since our cave-dwelling days. While the intellectuals are the brain behind progress, it is the rest of mankind is the body that follows the brain's commands. The intellectuals need the unintellectuals as much as they need them. But it is a gross oversimplification of this relationship of differing intellectual levels to say that all of mankind is equally complex. A worker with minimal or non-existant education does not grasp the nature of the universe the same way an educated polymath do. 

 

But because most mankind is of a simpler nature, embracing such things as Objectivist philosophies and religions because they lack the capacity to understand their own nature and the nature of the universe they live in, a strict adherence to a black and white morality is virtually guaranteed. The concepts of "good" and "bad" were something we developed when confronted with predators, environmental dangers and toxic edibles. In the growing absence of these things with the development of modern civilization, we simply transfer the concepts to other facets of our life, where they evolved into our modern sense of morality.

 

So it sounds like you're just substituting one 'truth' for another 'truth' of your own invention. This is really just you waxing a perspective that you hold and think is absolute, an 'I'm smart enough to get my thoughts' cliche. Sorry, but this isn't really going to fly very far. You're basically arguing for objectivism here, despite trying to decry it.

 

Morality is absolute. But the absolute nature of morality is not the same as the absolute nature of mankind. We do not have the fortune of always being able to act morally right. Such a life would require omniscience or at the very least mental time travel a'la Groundhog Day or the more recent Edge of Tomorrow. In the absence of such implausibilities, we can only acknowledge our actions and vow to always do better, if possible.

 

Where did this come from? You didn't try to back it up at all or build up to it at all. And how do you decide and conclude that morality, an abstract concept created by humans, is absolute? How do you even define morality? What 'absolute nature' of mankind are you even talking about? You aren't even making sense, you're just talking now to try and sound out-there. If we can't see or understand or connect with morality on a human level, how the hell can we abide by or define it? This isn't a logical following, and you seem to be implying that morality precedes life itself? On what basis do you make that conclusion? On what basis do you see that judgement encoded on the universe?

 

For example, killing is always evil, even if it has good consequences. If a man breaks into my home with the purpose of killing my family, and I kill him before he is able to, that does not make me a good. The act of killing was evil, but it was also necessary. The necessity of an action does not make it good, only necessary. Under optimal circumstances, the man should have never had to die. He was someone's child, possibly someone's partner, friend, sibling. Even if his close family agreed that his death was necessary, that still does not make it right. The right thing would have been to prevent his violent behaviour from ever arising in the first place. But without foresight or unfeasibly accurate predictions, such a thing is impossible. If evil is necessary to reduce imminent or long-term suffering, then it must be done. But it can never be justified. There is always a better, more optional path. Most often, we discover it when it is already out of our reach. In video games, we can reload and redo to set ourselves on this better path - but if reloading wiped our memories of the outcome of the choice, one wonders how many times we would make the same bad choice, over and over again. That does not make it so that our choices are good becaue we choose them.

 

I disagree. Killing is an action that is taken to render living matter into non-living matter. Your statement is broad blanket appeal to emotion. You're trying to make a definition of what's wrong and what's right based on a man breaking and entering your own home, and producing an undefined hypothetical that doesn't exist (and is thus not morally possible to judge) as the optimal ideal. If an action or circumstance is impossible to predict and impossible to exist, it is not 'moral'. It is impossible. And once more, I'm questioning where you get your definitions of justice and evil. You're using a lot of arbitrary language and assuming that the universe works the way you think it does. For starters, I think we'd disagree on what the better, optimal path would always be. It's as different for each person as a snowflake to another snowflake. 

 

For that reason, moral relativism is dangerous, because instead of cultivating an awareness of the boundary of right and wrong so that one can understand how to move back if it is ever crossed, moral relativists move the boundary itself to suit their needs, making the boundary and indeed morality itself devoid of purpose. With enough mental gymnastics, a moral relativist can argue that any action, regardless of how much suffering it causes, is ultimately good, which makes the definition of good worthless. Dictators and tyrants do it all the time, to the great detriment of the people relying on them.

 

 

That is not moral relativism that you are defining. Moral relativism is the acknowledgement that the rules and 'boundary' of right and wrong is the arbitrary creation by humans of a set of laws and standards meant to bring a higher realization to the concept of happiness for the most amount of people. You've given no definition whatsoever what such a boundary is or if such a boundary is measurable. You're saying it's absolute, but then also saying that it cannot be measured. That's a contradiction of terms. And to get to the other side, a moral relativist acknowledges that on a universal scheme, there is no inherent ability to judge right or wrong, with both terms being, once more, arbitrary creation of the human psyche. The purpose of morality and boundaries are not inherently devoid by this suggestion, only that morality cannot be defined on universal scale. One man's morality is another man's sin. That's a final statement to be put on. Any action can be viewed as immoral or moral, and a lot of times, it can be dependent on who feels what about any action. Ultimately, the basis for morality lies with the individual, and what they feel is right or wrong. Can you truly judge a man for being immoral if his morality that he has developed, on his own, possibly away from others tells him that he is moral? No, you'll just end up in an argument here in which there is no clear-cut answer, only a preferred desire for an outcome and shape of it.

 

 

Morality is a system of self-imposed laws of human behaviour. If the laws are not absolute, they serve no purpose.

 

 

Again, a contradiction in terms. This is how I defined laws and justice while lambasting your statement above.

 

This is untrue in a great many aspects, and filled with supposition in evidence: For starters, knowledge isn't a currency so much as a capability. You didn't define your statement of knowledge, so thus it has no boundaries. Knowledge alone is not what makes human life, or life itself, complex. Especially in the way that you're characterizing it via non-definition.

[AlanC9]

I don't think I'd use the word "altruistic", but yes, casualties would likely have been much much higher if not for the use of the atomic bombs.

I don't think "altruistic" really applies to the scenario, since in terms of US lives dropping the bombs was all gain, no pain. But it was the humanitarian thing to do since the projected Japanese casualties, civilian and military, were far worse than what the bombs did.

[AlanC9]

This new Doctor guy is Massively, right? 

It's hard to imagine Massively going to all the effort of setting up a sock puppet and then conversing with it in order to establish its bona fides. That would require him to actually care about how people reacted to his avatar, wouldn't it?

[AlanC9]

They only harvest advanced, spacefaring life. They can do that in a couple of centuries. Once they are done, they are forced to wait a tens of thousands of years before new advanced, spacefaring species will show up. That's the reason why the cycles exist. The cycles are a consequence of the variable pace of evolution, not a design choice.
 
Ergo, their nature has zilch to do with the cycles.

 

This is very silly. Why wipe out the species they harvest? Why only harvest spacefaring life? Why let that spacefaring life connect to other spacefaring life via the relays? If they let this happen because they want more life to harvest every time, why wait 50,000 years? Give cavemen agriculture and they could have harvested humanity 45,000 years ago.

 

I suppose this is where you go back to playing the "Reapers are advanced and mysterious and we can't understand them" card, right?

[Chinlee52]

Honestly, I still am quite disappointed (like many others) but I can "move on". The conclusion to an amazing series was defiantly sub par to the rest of the game and hell the series. We did what we could as a fan base to try to fight back with disappointing (if your like me) results.

We tried. 

[AlanC9]

For that reason, moral relativism is dangerous, because instead of cultivating an awareness of the boundary of right and wrong so that one can understand how to move back if it is ever crossed, moral relativists move the boundary itself to suit their needs, making the boundary and indeed morality itself devoid of purpose. With enough mental gymnastics, a moral relativist can argue that any action, regardless of how much suffering it causes, is ultimately good, which makes the definition of good worthless. Dictators and tyrants do it all the time, to the great detriment of the people relying on them.

 

Morality is a system of self-imposed laws of human behaviour. If the laws are not absolute, they serve no purpose.

 

Wait a second --- sounds like you're saying that morality is absolute because it needs to be absolute on utilitarian grounds. Doesn't that reduce your position to rule-utilitarianism? Except that the utility of keeping the rules inviolate trumps all other utility concerns because reasons.

[TheOneTrueBioticGod]

It's hard to imagine Massively going to all the effort of setting up a sock puppet and then conversing with it in order to establish its bona fides. That would require him to actually care about how people reacted to his avatar, wouldn't it?

Well, from what I can tell, Massively's account is banned, and the new guy has all thr same preferences and supposed backstory.

[Arcian]

This is very silly. Why wipe out the species they harvest? Why only harvest spacefaring life? Why let that spacefaring life connect to other spacefaring life via the relays? If they let this happen because they want more life to harvest every time, why wait 50,000 years? Give cavemen agriculture and they could have harvested humanity 45,000 years ago.

 

I suppose this is where you go back to playing the "Reapers are advanced and mysterious and we can't understand them" card, right?

Well to be fair, the protheans gave the asari agriculture and math and it still took them 48000 years to become spacefaring and find the Citadel. Go figure.

 

I can only presume the ability to use and most importantly understand science and technology is an evolutionary trait developed over a long time, and not something that you can just give to a species. Even the krogan had become smart enough to develop nuclear weapons two thousand years before the salarians uplifted them.

 

Personally, I think the Reapes aren't really that advanced (they've had a billion years to evolve and their design is still the same) and that we are perfectly capable of understanding them, provided we find something to understand. I think they simply believe that the Catalyst's plan achieves what the Catalyst claims it does, and that they choose to follow the Catalyst because it makes a good case for its plan. Really, for all we know, the Catalyst may be seen as their equivalent of a God, and that the cycle is their "divine" purpose for existing. The geth had no problems worshipping Sovereign, an intelligence vastly superior to their own, so why should the Reapers be any different when the Catalyst is described to be leagues above them?

[Hello!I'mTheDoctor]

What does it matter who I am or who I am not? I'm a voice for an idea. That's all there is.

[KaiserShep]

What does it matter who I am or who I am not? I'm a voice for an idea. That's all there is.

And ideas are bulletproof.