Then what was the point of the post I replied to? That the Catalyst isn't a utilitarian? Well, sure. An actual utilitarian would try to maintain some sort of steady state rather than the boom-bust cycles the Catalyst enforces. Of course, not doing that is a huge conceptual problem with the Reapers all the way back to ME1.
Ok, I am not a utilitarian myself and I am not super familiar with the underlying structure but from what I understand the philosophy is problematic anyway in the sense that utility is so tough to define. I know that some guys who came up with the philosophical concept like Bantham broadly define it as the well being of sentient beings but if you think about it, that is confining the definition very much to the perspective of individual sentients in the first place. So if you are happy to do that, yes, you original post from a few pages back works.
The problem was back then that in the context of the discussion that was going on at the time about the endings, we deliberately tried to get away from this perspective because apparently it doesn't apply to the catalyst. He is not a utilitarian or if he is at least he is not using this kind of definition of utility. He doesn't care about the suffering of sentient beings, he cares about organic life as a whole, as one concept.
Now, if you try to apply utility to that concept (think in terms of "what is the purpose of life?"), we'll never be able to answer these questions if we keep life static (which may be impossible to keep up forever in the first place). If you look through our posts from the last couple of pages (especially Ieldra's), you'll see that we came to the conclusion that even if life could develop a static mode of existence, it would be an evolutionary dead end and therefore would not really get us anywhere in answering the question of the utility of life.
You may of course argue that life doesn't necessarily need utility as a whole and I might even agree personally but again, that leaves us with the problem that the catalyst conceptualizes life as a whole and does not place any inherent value on the well being of individuals within that whole. Therefore, if he just wants to keep life going statically (without any hope of ever answering the question of it's purpose as a whole) but doesn't care about the suffering of individuals, he is not utilitarian and the question is moot.
The only way I could see your argument work more or less is if we consider the scenario like this: The catalyst actually does care about individuals but not necessarily about those of the present. If he thinks that machines are going to wipe everyone out, he is effectively saving the greater number of individuals that get to live during future cycles by wiping out the current generation of this cycle. This is no linger straight up utilitarianism though, it more goes into an offshoot of futurism in more or less the same lane as Nick Bostrom's theories.
I guess this may have been what you were getting at? If so, I guess you could make that argument. I don't agree with it personally though, since I don't think any individual within this cosmos can definitely predict the future (as you can never know everything, just by the definition of everything). Born from those inaccuracies, even if they are ever so tiny, come potential mistakes in the predictions which make them a shady basis for moral decisions in the present (especially if those decisions are focusing on wiping out all developed life everywhere). In the case of ME and the catalyst, this is especially relevant since even the reapers only seem to know a very tiny bit about the cosmos, namely, just about everything in the Milky Way and not much beyond (I can;t say that with 100% certainty but there are lot's of indications for this). Therefore, they are extremely badly equipped to claim accuracy for their predictions and thus lack any moral basis for their decision to keep the cycles going. Given their assumed intelligence, they should have realized that themselves, too. Also, the destroy ending proves this right, even within the story itself.
But that last paragraph is just my opinion of the matter, I guess it is possible, even extremely likely that the catalyst is a futurist.
@gothpunkboy89: Now this is going in circles. One last time (then I'm done), I answered your question of "Why would the AI need to exercise any control when nothing that happens in any of the ME games comes even vaguely close to threatening it or it's harvest solution?" in my last two replies. Your counter argument is "well, it only happened because Shepard did stuff", well, yes, Shepard did stuff, exactly! And the catalyst could have prevented it all if he could just open that relay.
The quantum shielding as you describe it in the other thread would not have worked on the alpha relay while it spun up, in which case it needed moving parts. That was the opening. Not a problem for the Citadel's outer shell.
Oh and btw, you didn't answer my two questions yet:
1. For the forth time now, why would the reapers/catalyst put in the extra effort to prevent the catalyst from taking control - if he wants - when building the Citadel?
2. You said there are multiple reasons why the reapers wouldn't attack the citadel right away in the beginning of ME3, even if the catalyst can open the arms or if they can "burn" through the shell somehow. Which reasons are those?
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