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#SpecialCircumstancesWasRight
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May 8, 2016 21:04
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Yeah the e-dust assassin is bad, but "hacked with effectors" is pretty euphemistic. A Mind was taken over and made to go through enough psycholgical pain that it committed suicide. One of the Culture's biggest taboos is loving with sapients' minds without their permission, they're supposed to be better than that. Yeah the overarching idea of The Culture is that they're friendly liberals on the surface but horrible interventionists in practice
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May 8, 2016 21:26
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yeah that's why i rooted for the iridans.
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May 8, 2016 22:23
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The Idirans are probably worse, what with the slavery and such, though. Relativism~
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May 8, 2016 22:40
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Snapchat A Titty posted:The Idirans are probably worse, what with the slavery and such, though. But they only enslaved beings without souls, so it's all perfectly acceptable. I absolutely loved that detail to them.
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May 8, 2016 22:51
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Strom Cuzewon posted:But they only enslaved beings without souls, so it's all perfectly acceptable. Ha yeah, it's such a clever way for them to avoid morality problems. Basically the same idea irl, some of the justifications for slavery in the 1800s was that black people are basically animals.
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May 8, 2016 22:56
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also they aren't controlled by machines.
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May 8, 2016 22:57
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Snapchat A Titty posted:Yeah the overarching idea of The Culture is that they're friendly liberals on the surface but horrible interventionists in practice "All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing", "if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor", etc... I mean, you have to take the Prime Directive pretty seriously not to step in and put an end to a genocide or whatever when you know you could.
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May 9, 2016 00:18
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MeLKoR posted:"All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing", "if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor", etc... Sure, I agree. It's just that most people will never be able to find a common ground to agree on bombing the gently caress out of another country/planet/world. Every person has their own limit if you ask them, but the clever thing about the Culture is that nobody is asked, they just have Contact & SC take care of it without any "oversight" (obviously sometimes you need to bomb iraq to pieces but at the same time there might be other options that werent explored)
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May 9, 2016 00:43
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Snapchat A Titty posted:(obviously sometimes you need to bomb iraq to pieces but at the same time there might be other options that werent explored) I trust the Minds to have done their homework if nothing else because it would be a faux pas not to. e: I wonder how much poo poo the Minds that fumbled the Chelgrian intervention get. MeLKoR fucked around with this message at 00:57 on May 9, 2016 |
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May 9, 2016 00:53
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Most of the time, though, the Culture's involvement takes almost any form other than indiscriminate bombing. They're constantly modeling different options and trying to find the one most likely to turn out well in the given scenario. The lack of oversight is tricky, though. There's transparency, in the sense that ostensibly anyone can learn about anything that's going on by asking the right questions, but there doesn't seem to be any formal mechanism for preventing a Mind or group of Minds from doing what they want. You can secede, like the Peace Faction did, but it's not like that kept the Idiran War from happening.
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May 9, 2016 00:59
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They've probably run some math and possibly a basic simulation but you can't ever know if you took the right choice.
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May 9, 2016 01:05
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Toast Museum posted:Most of the time, though, the Culture's involvement takes almost any form other than indiscriminate bombing. They're constantly modeling different options and trying to find the one most likely to turn out well in the given scenario. Bombs or agents, it's basically the same thing if the death toll is on the same level
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May 9, 2016 01:07
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Snapchat A Titty posted:Bombs or agents, it's basically the same thing if the death toll is on the same level That's a big "if." It's not much comfort for those who fall into the "regrettable but acceptable losses" category, but their interventions do seem to aim to minimize destruction in the long run. How much certainty does it take for someone to be obligated to choose the least-bad option available to them?
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May 9, 2016 02:29
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Snapchat A Titty posted:They've probably run some math and possibly a basic simulation but you can't ever know if you took the right choice. No, but they've been doing this for ten thousand years and they know for a fact they're good enough that orders of magnitude more lives are saved and improved than if they were non-interventionist. Which outweighs the times they take the wrong choice. Keep in mind they do actually have control groups, just to make sure that they simulate right and it is actually their actions. Earth is a control planet. (And even then they've probably run math showing that the increased accuracy of having x control groups will offset the increased deaths on them due to inaction) MikeJF fucked around with this message at 04:34 on May 9, 2016 |
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May 9, 2016 04:31
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all killing is immoral thus the culture is immoral.
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May 9, 2016 21:55
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Groovelord Neato posted:all killing is immoral thus the culture is immoral. Said the spiritual leader of a peaceful planetary civilization the week before being curb stomped by the Idirans. MeLKoR fucked around with this message at 02:09 on May 10, 2016 |
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May 10, 2016 01:38
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MeLKoR posted:Said the spiritual leader of a peaceful planetary civilization the week before being crumb stomped by the Idirans. Better dead than intervening in others' affairs, mind your own business 
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May 10, 2016 01:44
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Groovelord Neato posted:all killing is immoral thus the culture is immoral. Peace Faction hippy spotted.
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May 10, 2016 03:26
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Groovelord Neato posted:all killing is immoral thus the culture is immoral. Says the literal spectre of Death.
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May 10, 2016 05:48
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MeLKoR posted:Said the spiritual leader of a peaceful planetary civilization the week before being curb stomped by the Idirans. at least the iridans were honest about their actions.
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May 10, 2016 14:10
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Groovelord Neato posted:at least the iridans were honest about their actions. Considering their flavor of imperialism it's not like they could pretend they weren't doing it. You can't just lump everything in the same "Interventionism!" sack and leave it at that. The only question that matters is cui bono? The Culture certainly isn't taking material gain out of these interventions and they can mathematically demonstrate that from a materialist point of view the civilizations they interfere with enjoy a great increase in standards of living. Of course the Minds could be lying but there isn't really anything to substantiate that theory. The whole series might as well be a simulation run inside an evil Mind. If you take a life to save a billion, are you imoral? Is no killing to be allowed ever, under any circumstances? At what point does it make you an hypocritical version of the Idirans? MeLKoR fucked around with this message at 15:00 on May 10, 2016 |
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May 10, 2016 14:50
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You see, Genocide, systemic rape and slavery are important elements of a culture's self-expression and no matter how terrible they may be, at least the victims are free of outside interference. Can you imagine how insanely hosed up it would have been if a Culture agent were present at the Treaty of Versailles and nudged it towards less extortionate terms for Germany's surrender? Ten million people might have lost the chance to end their lives in authentic freedom at Nazi death camps.MeLKoR posted:
Perhaps it could argued okay to take a life if the scale of the gain was great enough, say under special circumstances?
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May 10, 2016 17:56
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multijoe posted:Perhaps it could argued okay to take a life if the scale of the gain was great enough, say under special circumstances? It's not black and white, more an Ethics Gradient.
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May 10, 2016 20:30
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It's rather the point, isn't it. The moment agree the premise that taking a life is a valid choice at some scale, we've agreed that it's OK, it's just a matter of opinion on what that scale should look like. And SC is just comprised of the people from Contact who have a different opinion on what that scale is.
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May 10, 2016 20:46
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:It's not black and white, more an Ethics Gradient. Really I think it's fair to say alot of SC's activities can be seen to be Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints
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May 10, 2016 21:00
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Shockeh posted:It's rather the point, isn't it. The moment agree the premise that taking a life is a valid choice at some scale, we've agreed that it's OK, it's just a matter of opinion on what that scale should look like. Saying "it's OK to kill people to protect others" is a completely different kettle of fish from "it's OK to kill people to conquer them and steal their stuff".
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May 11, 2016 09:59
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MeLKoR posted:Saying "it's OK to kill people to protect others" is a completely different kettle of fish from "it's OK to kill people to conquer them and steal their stuff". Depends how valuable you find their lives, and how valuable you find their stuff.
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May 11, 2016 10:37
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MeLKoR posted:Saying "it's OK to kill people to protect others" is a completely different kettle of fish from "it's OK to kill people to conquer them and steal their stuff". Because when you kill people to protect others, you don't say you were doing it because you wanted to steal their stuff.
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May 11, 2016 11:59
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Strawman posted:Because when you kill people to protect others, you don't say you were doing it because you wanted to steal their stuff. What possible use could Minds have for a bunch of primitive stuff stuck on the bottom of a gravity well?
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May 11, 2016 12:03
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Strawman posted:Because when you kill people to protect others, you don't say you were doing it because you wanted to steal their stuff. Hmmm ... nice username/post combo
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May 11, 2016 16:18
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I actually did like the one plot point in Excession where the minds realized that being a utopian post-scarcity society only lasts as long as there isn't something material to fight over. The speed at which all the different groups mobilized to try and seize control of the OCP scared some of them.
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May 11, 2016 16:24
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Max posted:I actually did like the one plot point in Excession where the minds realized that being a utopian post-scarcity society only lasts as long as there isn't something material to fight over. The speed at which all the different groups mobilized to try and seize control of the OCP scared some of them. Or in Look To Windward, when as soon as there's actual scarcity of something (concert tickets), people start bartering/trading favours/developing ad-hoc economic systems.
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May 12, 2016 04:07
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Video games manufacture artificial scarcity as a game mechanic all the time. It could be argued that past a certain level of technological development, market-based economics should be classified as entertainment.
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May 12, 2016 05:42
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Now imagine what a society with post-scarcity resources would be like if it was designed around providing entertainment for bored immortals.
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May 12, 2016 05:43
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What's amusing is that Hub did everything in its power to make sure that if anyone and everyone could see the show. It was simultaneously broadcast at multiple stadia, could be experienced remotely via VR, etc etc. Then the general population turns round and says "...but it only REALLY counts if you're there."
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May 12, 2016 05:56
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:What's amusing is that Hub did everything in its power to make sure that if anyone and everyone could see the show. It was simultaneously broadcast at multiple stadia, could be experienced remotely via VR, etc etc. Some did, anyway. There were 40 billion people on Masaq'. Dunno how much of the general population was doing it.
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May 12, 2016 08:19
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Max posted:I actually did like the one plot point in Excession where the minds realized that being a utopian post-scarcity society only lasts as long as there isn't something material to fight over. The speed at which all the different groups mobilized to try and seize control of the OCP scared some of them. This is why Excession is such an important book in the series, IMO--it shows that the Minds are not infallible and that the implied claims about the justness of their interventions need to be viewed with skepticism.
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May 12, 2016 17:50
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MeLKoR posted:What possible use could Minds have for a bunch of primitive stuff stuck on the bottom of a gravity well? I meant us. SC Minds are what interventionists in liberal democracies pretend to be.
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May 12, 2016 18:12
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Seldom Posts posted:This is why Excession is such an important book in the series, IMO--it shows that the Minds are not infallible and that the implied claims about the justness of their interventions need to be viewed with skepticism. I agree. Honestly though, I was more interested in the Mind emails and counter-maneuvers against each other than any of the drama surrounding the human characters in that book.
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May 12, 2016 18:17
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