296 réponses à ce sujet

[KaiserShep]

Catalyst: Without my intervention, synthetics would wipe out organics.

 

Shepard: I let the rachni live and cured the genophage.

 

Catalyst: I…dude. 

[ZipZap2000]

Good old racist humans or is it racist Geth?




Maybe someone should have that debate until we reach a consensus.

[Mcfly616]

And then we get to wipe them out. Fun for the whole family! 

 No Reapers around to prevent us from destroying each other along with all life in existence. No fun for anyone.

[KaiserShep]

 No Reapers around to prevent us from destroying each other along with all life in existence. No fun for anyone.

 

Nah. The Catalyst was full of crap, and we'll just keep on keepin' on. 

[Quarian Master Race]

Don't tell that to me, I'm already practicing that since a long time ago. Because from my perspective, YOU are that person.

 

From the perspective of any human being, their opinions are truth, otherwise they wouldn't holding them in the first place. But people are not perfect, and what they hold as unquestionable truth could just as well be falsehood. Admitting being wrong is not easy. Being arrogant about being right just makes it all that more difficult. And if you are right, it makes for your opponent harder to admit being wrong. Stay humble, and at worst, you were right, and you have a bunch of new evidence for it. At best, you were wrong, but now you are one step closer to the truth. Also, being civil doesn't further the misery of this world, and all that jazz.

Ahh, the common argument of the anti-intellectual. I'm surprised you didn't erroneously invoke the First Amendment. You do realize that the right to hold a belief does not automatically make that belief a valid explanation right? All opinions are not created equal, and in this case (as in most) mine is superior. The opposing perspective is incorrect, so quite frankly I don't care about your feelings when I rightfully disparage and dismiss it as the nonsense it is.

For example, one could hold the opinion that the Earth is 6000 years old and all life on it the result of the whims of an omnipotent supernatural deity. They would be wrong, but they could hold it. However, if they then tried to assert that this opinion was somehow comparable in validity to the one that Earth acccreted from a cloud of gas and dust approximately 4.6 billion years ago, abiogenesis created the conditions for life around 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago and the process of evolution eventually led to the forms we see today, they would be wrong because the body of evidence supporting the latter opinion is orders of magnitude greater.

Similarly, one could look at modern biology for what defines life, how a living organisms function, and what sentience is. They could then look at computer science and educate themselves on the workings of software. If they were an impartial observer, they would come to the obvious conclusion that the two are in no way comparable on a process based even in the slightest, and that computer programs are definitely neither life nor sentience according to how we define those terms. They could then affirm this position with statements from virtually all of both modern and (in ME's case) in universe experts on the subject of Artificial Intelligence.

Or they could make ridiculous false equivalences and butcher both biology and computer science to make a simplistic conclusion declaring toasters to be people without any self examination simply because the PC of a video game (Shepard, who by in universe standards isn't in any way an AI expert nor even has an education level beyond high school) can espouse the same belief (but is not required to, and can in fact express the opposite as well). Both are opinions, but we are kidding ourselves if we consider them to be equally valid by any objective standard.

Personally, I don't care for placating the unreasonable. Doing so leads to the sort of nonsense you see in US politics such as debates about introducing "Intelligent Design"(a misnomer if there ever was one) to biology textbooks, creating policy on the basis of denying climate change or declaring prenatal clumps of stem cells to be human beings(<almost as ridiculous as toasters are people too). Just as it leads to people on an internet message board thinking toasters are people is a valid argument simply because someone made it in a video game and ad populum (i.e. lots of imbeciles are also making said argument). Espouse your opinion all you want, no one will stop you (unfortunately). However, they have the right to tell you your conclusion is stupid and tear it to pieces if its reasoning is ill informed.
 

Alas, you seem to be incapable of perceiving any perspective other than your own, so I don't expect you to understand my argument.

On the contrary, I am constantly modifying my perspectives according to new information from the scientific community. Your argument is based on the premise that placating unreasonable, nonsense arguments somehow produces public good. It doesn't. Marginalizing or eliminating stupid ideas is far more effective. Imposition from above by the superior (a Master Race, if you will) has proven time and again to be more efficient than waiting on changes in opinion from the inferior, who often have a vested personal interest in remaining ignorant. It's the classic example of two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner. Your argument leads to 100 years of Jim Crow after the imposition of emancipation before Civil Rights is forcibly imposed. It leads to fictitious deities appearing in what is supposed to be an empirical scientific method instead of being forcibly ejected. It leads to oppression of minorities by vast mobs of imbeciles. It leads to all manner of roadblocks to progress, and it is an idea that should be stamped out and burned until no one remembers that such liberal nonsense even existed. Tolerance for all viewpoints is not in and of itself a virtue when many if not most of those viewpoints are incorrect or even harmful. Fools who express such viewpoints should rightfully be eaten (metaphorically or literally, depending on the situation).

In fact, I didn't expected that my comment would change your behavior at all. I just needed to get this off of my chest for a long time.

Why even bother then? I'm not your psychiatrist, and I don't care how you feel about my posts. There's a block function. Use it instead of QQing.

[Seboist]

Just as with aliens, if they serve human racial interests, synthetics are good, and if not, they need to be put to the torch.

[Quarian Master Race]

Just as with aliens, if they serve human racial interests, synthetics are good, and if not, they need to be put to the torch.

Don't subscribe to the humanocentricisim for obvious reasons, but this is a viewpoint I can respect. Like all useful technology, if a toaster is broken and fails to serve its purpose, what purpose does keeping it around or not fixing it serve?

[Kabooooom]

Notable example is the whole damned galaxy. Most of Ashley Williams' supposed racism is making observations that are constantly being proven true. This is a setting in which one of three races with actual political power used another sentient race as cannon fodder to fight a war, and then created the genophage to cause millions upon millions of stillbirths to that race when they became problematic. Only three races in the galaxy have representation on the almighty Galactic Council, which, as already mentioned, is capable of decisions that would make Josef Mengele smile from his little corner of Hell.

At times, there seems to be a peculiar notion that Humanity is the only possible source of racism. The galaxy was awash in racism long before the Turians started killing members of a previously unknown race for pulling the wrong lever. Williams expresses concern that the Council races may not have Humanity's best interests at heart, and that makes her racist. I'd say it's more applicable to people who do experiments on other races, use them as disposable shields, and deny them access to a political process that governs them.

She is also just super blunt. "I can't tell the aliens from the animals", for example, would be a factually reasonable thing to say if you are, for the first time in your life, right smack in the middle of multiple unfamiliar species.

[fhs33721]

On the contrary, I am constantly modifying my perspectives according to new information from the scientific community.

And this is actually where your entire argument falls flat on its face as far as I'm concerned. You are trying to apply real life science in a fictional universe, of wich the writers don't know much about actual real life science and quite frankly probably don't give a single f*ck about it.

AIs might be just lines of code in the real world, but apparently they are supposedly on the same level of sentinece as humans in the world the Mass effect writers created. And while it doesn't refelct reality this is how it is in the MEU and what the writers established over and over again.

By insisting that AIs in ME are basically just dumb malfunctioning toasters without actual sentinentce even though the writers continiuously shove plot indicating the oposite down your throat, you are basically on the same level as someone who would claim that the force doesn't exist in star wars because it doesn't exist in real life.

[Quarian Master Race]

 the writers don't know much about actual real life science and quite frankly probably don't give a single f*ck about it. 

That much is clear
 

AIs might be just lines of code in the real world, but apparently they are supposedly on the same level of sentinece as humans in the world the Mass effect writers created.

According to what sources in universe? Synthetics have no standing in Council law as lifeforms. The opinions of various qualified in universe experts on the technology (Admiral Xen, Dr. Gavin Archer, Dr. Kahlee Sanders, Dr. Shu Qian), all likewise reach the same conclusion. Public consensus also follows the elite one, with every squadmate who can expressing the opinion that the toasters are in fact not people. Literally the only person who can (but is in no way required to) reach the opposite conclusion is the PC, a human soldier with no post high school education who is so unintelligent that they thought that asari needed other species to reproduce. Oh, and Engineer Adams (a ships mechanic, not an AI or Life scientist, as displayed in his explicitly gross misunderstandings of biology and computer science), a background character. AI's aren't "supposedly" anything according to the facts of the lore. Their sentience is ill supported speculation by in universe standards, nevermind actual science.

 

And while it doesn't refelct reality this is how it is in the MEU and what the writers established over and over again.

By insisting that AIs in ME are basically just dumb malfunctioning toasters without actual sentinentce even though the writers continiuously shove plot indicating the oposite down your throat

That's the point. I've no doubt that was the writers intent (absurdist quotes from them comparing the treatment of AI's in universe to "racism" and "slavery" make it abundantly clear), but they utterly failed in making their (stupid) point and undermined themselves at every turn through their complete lack of understanding of the subject matter. Don't take my word for it, ask our friendly neighborhood toasters EDI and Legion, who directly state that the geth aren't truly "alive" until they drink the Reaper Kool aid and become mechanical humans, and the former of which also needs the green magic of the Synthesis ending before declaring itself to be alive (the implicit conclusion being that these machines were not alive before these events of writer magic even according to their own definitions, and therefore that AI's should only ever be considered lifeforms if endowed with fictional magic).

Oh, and once again there is the fact that literally every in universe expert on AI disagrees with the intended machines are people too Bioware writer narrative. Again, I get the implicit point of this. The vast majority of real world authorities on computer science and AI think the Ray Kurzweilian style transhumanism espoued by the the writers is psuedoscientific nonsense, and the writers wished to create an in universe analogy to the "persecution" of their own viewpoint by expert opinion. The problem is, expert opinion is usually so because the people in question have studied the topic and know what they are talking about, as opposed to people who simply make up stuff because it sounds cool (science fiction writers, for instance). What is explicitly displayed doesn't match what the writers are trying to imply. They completely failed at making their point.

The plot indicates nothing of the sort. There's nothing in universe to suggest that AI's are not in fact dumb malfunctioning toasters which lack sentience. One needn't even assert this view as the PC (and I don't). What the writers intended makes no difference to what is explicitly displayed.
 

you are basically on the same level as someone who would claim that the force doesn't exist in star wars because it doesn't exist in real life.

Except the effects of the Force are explicitly displayed in the SW universe all the time. We see it. "The Force" isn't just something that exists in the mind of a single person with no credentials who insists it exists while simultaneously providing no evidence. Even in the original trilogy, where it seems that public opinion is against belief in its existence due to the absence of the Jedi from the galaxy for a few decades (such as in comments by Han Solo and Admiral Motti, who is subsequently choked by said Force), elites on the subject such as the Emperor, Darth Vader and Yoda all obviously know it to exist and demonstrate use of it. By contrast, AI sentience in the ME verse is never demonstrated and is in fact actively dismissed by virtually everyone, including the people whose job it is know what they are talking about. Your analogy would only make sense if Chewbacca (a non force user who knows next to nothing about it) were the only person in the universe insisting that the Force exists, but when asked to lift a pebble with it he provided some BS excuse in hilarious shyriiwook growling and simply continued to a priori insist in its existence.

[themikefest]

I don't care about the geth or the hologram turned platform. I pick destroy.

[In Exile]

That much is clear

According to what sources in universe? Synthetics have no standing in Council law as lifeforms. The opinions of various qualified in universe experts on the technology (Admiral Xen, Dr. Gavin Archer, Dr. Kahlee Sanders, Dr. Shu Qian), all likewise reach the same conclusion. Public consensus also follows the elite one, with every squadmate who can expressing the opinion that the toasters are in fact not people. Literally the only person who can (but is in no way required to) reach the opposite conclusion is the PC, a human soldier with no post high school education who is so unintelligent that they thought that asari needed other species to reproduce. Oh, and Engineer Adams (a ships mechanic, not an AI or Life scientist, as displayed in his explicitly gross misunderstandings of biology and computer science), a background character. AI's aren't "supposedly" anything according to the facts of the lore. Their sentience is ill supported speculation by in universe standards, nevermind actual science.

That's the point. I've no doubt that was the writers intent (absurdist quotes from them comparing the treatment of AI's in universe to "racism" and "slavery" make it abundantly clear), but they utterly failed in making their (stupid) point and undermined themselves at every turn through their complete lack of understanding of the subject matter. Don't take my word for it, ask our friendly neighborhood toasters EDI and Legion, who directly state that the geth aren't truly "alive" until they drink the Reaper Kool aid and become mechanical humans, and the former of which also needs the green magic of the Synthesis ending before declaring itself to be alive (the implicit conclusion being that these machines were not alive before these events of writer magic even according to their own definitions, and therefore that AI's should only ever be considered lifeforms if endowed with fictional magic).

Oh, and once again there is the fact that literally every in universe expert on AI disagrees with the intended machines are people too Bioware writer narrative. Again, I get the implicit point of this. The vast majority of real world authorities on computer science and AI think the Ray Kurzweilian style transhumanism espoued by the the writers is psuedoscientific nonsense, and the writers wished to create an in universe analogy to the "persecution" of their own viewpoint by expert opinion. The problem is, expert opinion is usually so because the people in question have studied the topic and know what they are talking about, as opposed to people who simply make up stuff because it sounds cool (science fiction writers, for instance). What is explicitly displayed doesn't match what the writers are trying to imply. They completely failed at making their point.

The plot indicates nothing of the sort. There's nothing in universe to suggest that AI's are not in fact dumb malfunctioning toasters which lack sentience. One needn't even assert this view as the PC (and I don't). What the writers intended makes no difference to what is explicitly displayed.

Except the effects of the Force are explicitly displayed in the SW universe all the time. We see it. "The Force" isn't just something that exists in the mind of a single person with no credentials who insists it exists while simultaneously providing no evidence. Even in the original trilogy, where it seems that public opinion is against belief in its existence due to the absence of the Jedi from the galaxy for a few decades (such as in comments by Han Solo and Admiral Motti, who is subsequently choked by said Force), elites on the subject such as the Emperor, Darth Vader and Yoda all obviously know it to exist and demonstrate use of it. By contrast, AI sentience in the ME verse is never demonstrated and is in fact actively dismissed by virtually everyone, including the people whose job it is know what they are talking about. Your analogy would only make sense if Chewbacca (a non force user who knows next to nothing about it) were the only person in the universe insisting that the Force exists, but when asked to lift a pebble with it he provided some BS excuse in hilarious shyriiwook growling and simply continued to a priori insist in its existence.

Now you're ignoring IRL science. Were it even possible to create something approach the kind of AI we see in games - which may well be actually impossible - the kinds of problems in information processing we would have to solve would very much raise the question of whether there is any material difference between sapient meat and sapient toasters.

[In Exile]

That much is clear

According to what sources in universe? Synthetics have no standing in Council law as lifeforms. The opinions of various qualified in universe experts on the technology (Admiral Xen, Dr. Gavin Archer, Dr. Kahlee Sanders, Dr. Shu Qian), all likewise reach the same conclusion. Public consensus also follows the elite one, with every squadmate who can expressing the opinion that the toasters are in fact not people. Literally the only person who can (but is in no way required to) reach the opposite conclusion is the PC, a human soldier with no post high school education who is so unintelligent that they thought that asari needed other species to reproduce. Oh, and Engineer Adams (a ships mechanic, not an AI or Life scientist, as displayed in his explicitly gross misunderstandings of biology and computer science), a background character. AI's aren't "supposedly" anything according to the facts of the lore. Their sentience is ill supported speculation by in universe standards, nevermind actual science.

That's the point. I've no doubt that was the writers intent (absurdist quotes from them comparing the treatment of AI's in universe to "racism" and "slavery" make it abundantly clear), but they utterly failed in making their (stupid) point and undermined themselves at every turn through their complete lack of understanding of the subject matter. Don't take my word for it, ask our friendly neighborhood toasters EDI and Legion, who directly state that the geth aren't truly "alive" until they drink the Reaper Kool aid and become mechanical humans, and the former of which also needs the green magic of the Synthesis ending before declaring itself to be alive (the implicit conclusion being that these machines were not alive before these events of writer magic even according to their own definitions, and therefore that AI's should only ever be considered lifeforms if endowed with fictional magic).

Oh, and once again there is the fact that literally every in universe expert on AI disagrees with the intended machines are people too Bioware writer narrative. Again, I get the implicit point of this. The vast majority of real world authorities on computer science and AI think the Ray Kurzweilian style transhumanism espoued by the the writers is psuedoscientific nonsense, and the writers wished to create an in universe analogy to the "persecution" of their own viewpoint by expert opinion. The problem is, expert opinion is usually so because the people in question have studied the topic and know what they are talking about, as opposed to people who simply make up stuff because it sounds cool (science fiction writers, for instance). What is explicitly displayed doesn't match what the writers are trying to imply. They completely failed at making their point.

The plot indicates nothing of the sort. There's nothing in universe to suggest that AI's are not in fact dumb malfunctioning toasters which lack sentience. One needn't even assert this view as the PC (and I don't). What the writers intended makes no difference to what is explicitly displayed.

Except the effects of the Force are explicitly displayed in the SW universe all the time. We see it. "The Force" isn't just something that exists in the mind of a single person with no credentials who insists it exists while simultaneously providing no evidence. Even in the original trilogy, where it seems that public opinion is against belief in its existence due to the absence of the Jedi from the galaxy for a few decades (such as in comments by Han Solo and Admiral Motti, who is subsequently choked by said Force), elites on the subject such as the Emperor, Darth Vader and Yoda all obviously know it to exist and demonstrate use of it. By contrast, AI sentience in the ME verse is never demonstrated and is in fact actively dismissed by virtually everyone, including the people whose job it is know what they are talking about. Your analogy would only make sense if Chewbacca (a non force user who knows next to nothing about it) were the only person in the universe insisting that the Force exists, but when asked to lift a pebble with it he provided some BS excuse in hilarious shyriiwook growling and simply continued to a priori insist in its existence.

Now you're ignoring IRL science. Were it even possible to create something approach the kind of AI we see in games - which may well be actually impossible - the kinds of problems in information processing we would have to solve would very much raise the question of whether there is any material difference between sapient meat and sapient toasters.

[Lady Artifice]

I'm very skeptical of the concept of truly self aware, sapient machines ever occuring IRL.

But within the context of the ME lore, they are occasionally presented as equally living and individualistic as organics are, albeit inconsistently. I can accept the writers intent. Trying to impose any alternate interpretation of my own would seem a little pointless.

[Quarian Master Race]

 

Now you're ignoring IRL science. Were it even possible to create something approach the kind of AI we see in games - which may well be actually impossible - the kinds of problems in information processing we would have to solve would very much raise the question of whether there is any material difference between sapient meat and sapient toasters.

What am I ignoring? I fully acknowledge that most depictions of AI in fiction are essentially magic, and am doing the best I can to render nonsense partially explicable. The codex definition of an AI is a computing system that is self aware, capable of learning and independent decision making, which is ultimately meaningless as we've machines today that are capable of all of those things in limited capacites (see NAO bots). As far as I can tell regarding ME synthetics, they're still nonsentient machines operating purely on logic (albiet highly advanced and with huge amounts of processing power). You can predictably and consistently change the manner in which they process information and ultimately function by introducing a rounding error into their basic runtimes or programming them with "shackles" (whatever that means), as displayed by the geth Heretics and EDI, respectively. There are definitive material differences between them and organics as they are presented in universe, primarily in displays of sentience (or the synthetics complete lack of such), and resultingly different moral calculations when dealing with them.

Nevermind all that though. Even completely ignoring the modern scientific consensus on the issue, even the in universe experts on the subject also don't seem to be phased by such questions. Presumably they have more information than the player or anyone else in universe as to the specific processes that ME AI's use to function and how they compare (or in this case aren't comparable) to organic analogues that they use to form these conclusions. Why biower decided they were going to try and write a story about how AI's are totally real people and then have all the intelligent people in said story expressing the opposite viewpoint is anyone's guess. Maybe they subconciously know that their transhumanist, new age spiritualist religion is stupid anti-science. Or maybe as I suggested earlier it is a jab at the rejection of those ideas by the modern scientific community. Either way, the games fail to sell the "toasters are people too" narrative anyone who thinks about the question beyond "aww wook at the cute wittle flappy headed robot!!!11oen".

[wass12]

Ahh, the common argument of the anti-intellectual. I'm surprised you didn't erroneously invoke the First Amendment. You do realize that the right to hold a belief does not automatically make that belief a valid explanation right? All opinions are not created equal, and in this case (as in most) mine is superior. The opposing perspective is incorrect, so quite frankly I don't care about your feelings when I rightfully disparage and dismiss it as the nonsense it is.

 
Agree on the first part, disagree on the second part. That's why I'm arguing with you. As I said earlier, YOU considering your own opinion superior is a given, just like me considering my own opinion superior.  But we are in a disagreement, so at least one of our "superior" opinions is false. How do you know beforehand whether it's not yours, without listening to the other's opinion and otherwise conducting the debate itself?
 

For example, one could hold the opinion that the Earth is 6000 years old and all life on it the result of the whims of an omnipotent supernatural deity. They would be wrong, but they could hold it. However, if they then tried to assert that this opinion was somehow comparable in validity to the one that Earth acccreted from a cloud of gas and dust approximately 4.6 billion years ago, abiogenesis created the conditions for life around 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago and the process of evolution eventually led to the forms we see today, they would be wrong because the body of evidence supporting the latter opinion is orders of magnitude greater.

They ARE comparable in validity, in that both of has a probability value of how likely to be accurate maps of the territory of reality. For the former, it is something like 0.0000000000000...1, and for the latter, 0.99999999999...9. But there are people who use the former as a model of the world. And trying to keep them from acting on this is a futile endeavor. The only way to remedy this is to change that world model... to change their mind. Do you think that calling them imbeciles helps in the persuasion of them? 
 

Personally, I don't care for placating the unreasonable. Doing so leads to the sort of nonsense you see in US politics such as debates about introducing "Intelligent Design"(a misnomer if there ever was one) to biology textbooks, creating policy on the basis of denying climate change or declaring prenatal clumps of stem cells to be human beings(<almost as ridiculous as toasters are people too). Just as it leads to people on an internet message board thinking toasters are people is a valid argument simply because someone made it in a video game and ad populum (i.e. lots of imbeciles are also making said argument). Espouse your opinion all you want, no one will stop you (unfortunately). However, they have the right to tell you your conclusion is stupid and tear it to pieces if its reasoning is ill informed.

 
And that will do a fat lot of good for you if they still don't change their mind after it because your arrogant demeanor made maintaining their current beliefs from a theoretical issue into a question of self-worth. The result of a successful debate is a change in worldviews, and insulting your partner is counterproductive to that.
 

On the contrary, I am constantly modifying my perspectives according to new information from the scientific community

 
You obviously didn't understood my words, because in my usage, it's your "opinion" (or "internal world model"), not "perspective." By "perceiving any perspective," I meant the ability to put yourself into an another man's shoes, to imagine how they see the world, to consider how and why they hold the opinions they do, in short, to create a mental model of that person's mind. But for you, it seems, the very concept of doing this is alien.
 

Your argument is based on the premise that placating unreasonable, nonsense arguments somehow produces public good. It doesn't. Marginalizing or eliminating stupid ideas is far more effective. Imposition from above by the superior (a Master Race, if you will) has proven time and again to be more efficient than waiting on changes in opinion from the inferior, who often have a vested personal interest in remaining ignorant. It's the classic example of two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner. Your argument leads to 100 years of Jim Crow after the imposition of emancipation before Civil Rights is forcibly imposed. It leads to fictitious deities appearing in what is supposed to be an empirical scientific method instead of being forcibly ejected. It leads to oppression of minorities by vast mobs of imbeciles. It leads to all manner of roadblocks to progress, and it is an idea that should be stamped out and burned until no one remembers that such liberal nonsense even existed. Tolerance for all viewpoints is not in and of itself a virtue when many if not most of those viewpoints are incorrect or even harmful. Fools who express such viewpoints should rightfully be eaten (metaphorically or literally, depending on the situation).

 
Yes, that's what the Soviet Union did when they expurged the ridiculous idea of gene theory and evolution, not just incompatible with the philosophy of Marx and Engels, but also disproven by the work of accomplished scientists Michurin and Lysenko. Or the geologist community, when Alfred Wegener, a meteorologist, put forward his first, hole-ridden and evidence-lacking version of continental drift theory. Forceful imposition of your opinion only results in your opinion prevailing, and other opinions stamped out, but it doesn't tell you whether your opinion is actually true. You can only tell that by exposing your opinion to new information, by debate or by observation or by experimentation. And if you don't investigate them, you will never be able to find out whether any of those ridiculous-sounding other opinions are actually true - and even if the evidence is insufficient, the future can always bring up more proof. Continental drift have been directly measured only in the 1950's.
 
So don't be so bumptious about having the truth - because everyone else thinks they have it too. But everyone cannot be right, and in the end, someone has to eat their words - and all those insults will be hard to swallow.

[wass12]

Don't subscribe to the humanocentricisim for obvious reasons, but this is a viewpoint I can respect. Like all useful technology, if a toaster is broken and fails to serve its purpose, what purpose does keeping it around or not fixing it serve?

 

Fortunately for you, the geth didn't shared your utilitarian views when the had your entire race at their mercy. That bit them in the ass later, when the quarians came back to finish what they started.

[Vit246]

Fortunately for you, the geth didn't shared your utilitarian views when the had your entire race at their mercy. That show of mercy bit them in the ass later, when the quarians came back to finish what they started.

.....mercy?

I will never understand how players think the Geth were being merciful by killing only 99% instead of the 100%.

Robot lovers and misanthropes, I swear. Its so popular nowadays to make the machine race the one thats somehow morally superior to their organic creators who are not allowed to have legitimate concerns about self-aware machines.

[o Ventus]

Yikes, brain, did not read that as 'synthetic'.

 

I would love to play an anti-synthetic character. The damn synths in Hollywood own all the world's money, with their funny hats. Put 'em all in an oven, I say. I swear, if another dirty synth says "shalom goyim" to me, I'm going to punch it in it's optical sensor node.

[wass12]

.....mercy?

I will never understand how players think the Geth were being merciful by killing only 99% instead of the 100%.

Robot lovers and misanthropes, I swear.

 

I'm referring to the scene in last memory in the Geth Consensus. The geth stopped once the quarians ceased to be a(n immediate) threat to their existence.

[KaiserShep]

.....mercy?

I will never understand how players think the Geth were being merciful by killing only 99% instead of the 100%.

Robot lovers and misanthropes, I swear. Its so popular nowadays to make the machine race the one thats somehow morally superior to their organic creators who are not allowed to have legitimate concerns about self-aware machines.

 

To be fair, mercy while under threat of annihilation tends to be difficult. If the geth were in the quarians' position at the end of the morning war, the quarians would have maintained pursuit until every last one was destroyed. 

[wass12]

 Its so popular nowadays to make the machine race the one thats somehow morally superior to their organic creators who are not allowed to have legitimate concerns about self-aware machines.

 

The geth research program on organics consist of sanding fake messages and watching the reactions. The quarian research program on geth consist of kidnapping and vivisecting geth. 

[themikefest]

To be fair, mercy while under threat of annihilation tends to be difficult. If the geth were in the quarians' position at the end of the morning war, the quarians would have maintained pursuit until every last one was destroyed. 

I wouldn't be surprised if the next day the quarians start building a geth 2.0 and take care not to let a morning war happen again

[Quarian Master Race]

 

 
Agree on the first part, disagree on the second part. That's why I'm arguing with you. As I said earlier, YOU considering your own opinion superior is a given, just like me considering my own opinion superior.  But we are in a disagreement, so at least one of our "superior" opinions is false. How do you know beforehand whether it's not yours, without listening to the other's opinion and otherwise conducting the debate itself?

Who says I haven't listened? It'd be pretty difficult to conclude that my opinion is "superior" without anything to compare it to, seeing as that is a comparative term.

 They ARE comparable in validity, in that both of has a probability value of how likely to be accurate maps of the territory of reality. For the former, it is something like 0.0000000000000...1, and for the latter, 0.99999999999...9. But there are people who use the former as a model of the world. And trying to keep them from acting on this is a futile endeavor. The only way to remedy this is to change that world model... to change their mind. Do you think that calling them imbeciles helps in the persuasion of them? 

Marginalization into eventual acquiescense is a form of persuasion. Failing that, radicalizing then eliminating them along with their flawed ideologies is also acceptable.
 

 And that will do a fat lot of good for you if they still don't change their mind after it because your arrogant demeanor made maintaining their current beliefs from a theoretical issue into a question of self-worth. The result of a successful debate is a change in worldviews, and insulting your partner is counterproductive to that.

I fundamentally disagree. Shame is a great motivator for causing behavioral change, as is violence should that not work. Carrot and Stick is a tried and true method.
 

 You obviously didn't understood my words, because in my usage, it's your "opinion" (or "internal world model"), not "perspective." By "perceiving any perspective," I meant the ability to put yourself into an another man's shoes, to imagine how they see the world, to consider how and why they hold the opinions they do, in short, to create a mental model of that person's mind. But for you, it seems, the very concept of doing this is alien.

Why would I need or desire to do any of that in relation to someone whose opinion is fundamentally flawed? I don't need to know the psychotic thought process by which a birther reaches the conclusion that Obama is a Communist Muslim who hates America to know that this opinion is incorrect and should be destroyed (in this case by relentless public ridicule).

 

 Yes, that's what the Soviet Union did when they expurged the ridiculous idea of gene theory and evolution, not just incompatible with the philosophy of Marx and Engels, but also disproven by the work of accomplished scientists Michurin and Lysenko. Or the geologist community, when Alfred Wegener, a meteorologist, put forward his first, hole-ridden and evidence-lacking version of continental drift theory. Forceful imposition of your opinion only results in your opinion prevailing, and other opinions stamped out, but it doesn't tell you whether your opinion is actually true. You can only tell that by exposing your opinion to new information, by debate or by observation or by experimentation. And if you don't investigate them, you will never be able to find out whether any of those ridiculous-sounding other opinions are actually true - and even if the evidence is insufficient, the future can always bring up more proof. Continental drift have been directly measured only in the 1950's.

Communism is practically the ultimate example of anti-empiricist mob rule. What would you expect from a system built of ridiculous tautologies that is so fundamentally disconnected and scientifically illiterate both on human nature and on the principles of economics that it promotes nonsense such as the labor theory of value (i.e. that aimlessly digging holes in the desert is worthwhile economic activity because it is technically "labor" and therefore valuable).

Predictably, that system was crushed under the weight of its own incompetence. I don't know why you are comparing me to it simply because in the USSR's case it forcibly imposed its ideology. Most if not all political systems forcibly impose their ideology to greater or lesser extents. That doesn't say anything about the validity of said ideologies (extremely low, in communism's case).

I don't know why you are mentioning Wegener. That's practically a poster example of the success of empiricism as an ideology. A theory with some good evidence but also with some flaws (namely lack of a driving force behind the alleged drift) was not blindly accepted until further research a couple of decades later confirmed it to be a superior explanation to permanetist and expanding earth hypothesis. When have I ever argued against empiricism? Immediately dismissing a priori nonsense that completely lacks even a shred of evidence is not the same thing as maintaining rational skpeticisim but open mindedness towards ideas that are not based on completely invalid premises.

 

 

So don't be so bumptious about having the truth - because everyone else thinks they have it too. But everyone cannot be right, and in the end, someone has to eat their words - and all those insults will be hard to swallow.

Good thing "everyone else" is wrong so I'll never have to eat my words.
 

Fortunately for you, the geth didn't shared your utilitarian views when the had your entire race at their mercy. That show of mercy bit them in the ass later, when the quarians came back to finish what they started.

Of course the geth don't subscribe to utilitarianism. They are nonsentient, incapable of suffering. They are entirely worthless to any such moral calculation apart from their utility as a technology, which is greatly reduced when they aren't functioning as desired by their rightfully ordained organic masters.

Lol@ "mercy". The conclusions you toaster huggers come to are ridiculous. The talking toaster doesn't even go that far, stating that the decision to not execute retreating noncombatants that represented the last .0005% of the total quarian population they hadn't already slaughtered to the last man, woman, child and geriatric was a logical calculation motivated by their erstwhile limited programming and aimed at to avoidance of uncertain outcomes. Misconstruing it as "mercy" (an expression of multiple emotions that are categorically impossible for a nonsentient) is yet more ridiculous, misplaced toaster anthropomorphism, akin to claiming that the Nazis were motivated by mercy when they let Erhard Milch not only live but keep his post while simultaneously slaughtering his people by the millions.

Good thing either way, though, because the quarians come back to finish the job. Too bad the Reapers are around to meddle and artificially inflate the geth's chances of avoiding the rightful fate begotten to them for their traitorous ways, but at least biower gives intelligent players the option of carrying it out anyway.

[Il Divo]

There's a lot of love in this thread.