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Ok, poor phrasing. Freedom can be used for good or evil, of course. But freedom itself is good (as opposed to the evil of slavery and tyranny), so much so that I'm disappointed I even have to make the case.
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# ? Oct 11, 2020 14:04 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 23:54 |
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Son of Sam-I-Am posted:Ok, poor phrasing. Freedom can be used for good or evil, of course. But freedom itself is good (as opposed to the evil of slavery and tyranny), so much so that I'm disappointed I even have to make the case. This is obviously a false dichotomy. You can have a society which isn't free which doesn't involve slavery or tyranny.
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# ? Oct 11, 2020 14:24 |
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Technically that just involved redefining the terms. Like how America outlawed slavery but gave themselves a loophole with criminals
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# ? Oct 11, 2020 14:26 |
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MrL_JaKiri posted:The Real Ghostbusters was good I have Captain Power on DVD somewhere, I really should bust that out.
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# ? Oct 11, 2020 14:52 |
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MrL_JaKiri posted:This is obviously a false dichotomy. You can have a society which isn't free which doesn't involve slavery or tyranny. Describe such a society.
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# ? Oct 11, 2020 14:52 |
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CharlestheHammer posted:Technically that just involved redefining the terms. The 13th Amendment clearly says slavery is banned, except
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# ? Oct 11, 2020 14:52 |
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Son of Sam-I-Am posted:Describe such a society. I like to think (and the sooner the better!) of a cybernetic meadow where mammals and computers live together in mutually programming harmony like pure water touching clear sky. I like to think (right now, please!) of a cybernetic forest filled with pines and electronics where deer stroll peacefully past computers as if they were flowers with spinning blossoms. I like to think (it has to be!) of a cybernetic ecology where we are free of our labors and joined back to nature, returned to our mammal brothers and sisters, and all watched over by machines of loving grace.
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# ? Oct 11, 2020 14:57 |
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Vavrek posted:The 13th Amendment clearly says slavery is banned, except Yeah but if you ask most people if prisoner labor is slavery they will say of course not. Propaganda can do much more than legal definitions
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# ? Oct 11, 2020 15:13 |
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Son of Sam-I-Am posted:Ok, poor phrasing. Freedom can be used for good or evil, of course. But freedom itself is good (as opposed to the evil of slavery and tyranny), so much so that I'm disappointed I even have to make the case. “So if one is a prisoner of love, one must escape to solitude? If one is a prisoner of joy, must one escape to sadness?” It’s all a matter of definition. Slavery is evil, sure. Does that make freedom good? Should I be free to poison my neighbor’s cat, for example? To shoot someone dead in the street? Are laws and regulations tyrannical, or essential for a free society? Slavery is still constitutionally permitted in America for prisoners. Is that evil? Setting slavery aside, someone like Jeffery Epstein or a group like NXIVM unquestionably enslaved people, but without literal buying and selling of people as property. That seems evil, and yet they were able to get away with their behavior for years because they could play their right to liberty as more important than their transgressions. Set religious liberty against tyrannical practices within specific religious communities, and you’ll find that sometimes, more laws and restrictions reduce both liberty and slavery. Nor are these positions absolutely and objectively correct. Thomas Hobbes would say that slavery and tyranny may be evils necessary to accept in order to prevent far greater evils, for example. Plato imagined philosopher-kings who would avoid being tyrants by virtue of being very enlightened. Jefferson fought against what he saw as the potential for tyranny in America’s federal government while buying and selling human beings. Lincoln suspended the right of habeus corpus during the Civil War. Which brings us to the way in which B5 can work for people with differing political beliefs: rejecting absolute Order and absolute Chaos is just the starting point of a struggle to articulate and defend principles which themselves require constant development. G’kar’s principles may be a good start, but how you implement them gets messy fast. This is part of why I like S5: it’s much easier and cleaner to fight a war against enemies who pose an existential threat than it is to fight for your principles when they come into conflict with one another. When the telepath refugees demanded a planet, why say no after saying yes to asylum? Because you didn’t like the way they asked? I’d be curious to see how much in-thread disagreement there is about how Sheridan and the ISA actually do, and if there’s objections to the Statement of Principles.
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# ? Oct 11, 2020 15:17 |
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Son of Sam-I-Am posted:Describe such a society. Take a lighter approach to 1984 and mix that onto current technological advancements. Cameras and tracking devices everywhere. One can't commit a crime, no matter how small it is. Even littering or jaywalking gets instantly punished via fine on your bank account. But the rest of the life? As we live now with work, achievements, hell maybe even meritocracy, free housing and such. Just total control over every day life.
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# ? Oct 11, 2020 15:45 |
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Son of Sam-I-Am posted:Describe such a society. https://alphacentauri.gamepedia.com/Human_Hive
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# ? Oct 11, 2020 15:53 |
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Son of Sam-I-Am posted:Ok, poor phrasing. Freedom can be used for good or evil, of course. But freedom itself is good (as opposed to the evil of slavery and tyranny), so much so that I'm disappointed I even have to make the case. Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®
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# ? Oct 11, 2020 16:33 |
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MrL_JaKiri posted:This is obviously a false dichotomy. You can have a society which isn't free which doesn't involve slavery or tyranny. Son of Sam-I-Am posted:Describe such a society. probably fodder for another thread, tbh It's been a while since the last time I read it, but I liked reading about the society in Tony Ballantyne's Recursion. The blurb and exerpt claim it's mainly about some nerd called Herb but the real meat of the story is in the past-era storyline centered on a woman who tried to evade the social surveillance to off herself, got caught and then committed to an asylum (one that actually seems helpful). The society is fairly unfree (job is chosen for you by supercomputers that match your personality & skills to tasks; habits and purchases are monitored and correlated) but the structure behind it genuinely tries to make its citizens content with what they get. It doesn't always succeed, as evidenced by the main characters, but it tries.
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# ? Oct 11, 2020 17:44 |
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Narsham posted:“So if one is a prisoner of love, one must escape to solitude? If one is a prisoner of joy, must one escape to sadness?” In these cases you're not exercising freedom, you're being, in essence, tyrannical, curtailing the freedom of others. Laws and regulations are good insofar as they protect this for all. Not that that's helpful in resolving many specific cases since everything is a trade-off.
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# ? Oct 11, 2020 18:26 |
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Slavery can be defined too, for instance is a child a slave to their parent in most of society? Is it right that a parent have control of their child? What age do we grant autonomy?
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# ? Oct 12, 2020 04:06 |
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Green!
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# ? Oct 12, 2020 04:11 |
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We just watched S4E14 "Moments of Transition" tonight and Neroon is low-key (if such a thing can be said about him) one of my favorite characters. Hard as nails, but thoughtful, honorable, and valiant. The Starfire Wheel is something straight out of like The Dark Crystal, I love it.
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# ? Oct 12, 2020 04:47 |
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I love how the Minbari separate their society into warrior, religious, and miscellaneous.
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# ? Oct 12, 2020 05:59 |
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Warrior, Religious, Hufflepuff
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# ? Oct 12, 2020 06:37 |
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V-Men posted:I love how the Minbari separate their society into warrior, religious, and miscellaneous. wait until you hear about feudalism
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# ? Oct 12, 2020 08:28 |
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mossyfisk posted:wait until you hear about feudalism I don't literally love it. I think it's just hilarious that they decided that Worker was a great catch all for everyone who wasn't guiding spirituality or in the military.
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# ? Oct 12, 2020 13:22 |
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Son of Sam-I-Am posted:We just watched S4E14 "Moments of Transition" tonight and Neroon is low-key (if such a thing can be said about him) one of my favorite characters. Hard as nails, but thoughtful, honorable, and valiant. The Starfire Wheel is something straight out of like The Dark Crystal, I love it. Man, I agree so much. Neroon went from "I hate this douche" to "NEROON 4 EVAH!" so well, and he doesn't even really get that much screen time, when you rewatch.
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# ? Oct 12, 2020 13:29 |
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Doctor Zero posted:Man, I agree so much. Neroon went from "I hate this douche" to "NEROON 4 EVAH!" so well, and he doesn't even really get that much screen time, when you rewatch. There are a few characters, like Neroon, who you can genuinely do a mini-watch just of the episodes they appear in. His arc from the "where is my war hero's body?" to "I do not think they would die for me. But they would die... for you." to actually dying for her. And where Branmer, the dead Minbari in his first episode, was originally Religious caste but became a war leader, Neroon reverses that journey and evens the scales. There are no doubt actors playing as regulars in long-running series who wish they had a character arc like Neroon's.
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# ? Oct 12, 2020 18:50 |
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mossyfisk posted:wait until you hear about feudalism Feudalism did make notice of craftsmen
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# ? Oct 12, 2020 21:32 |
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Narsham posted:There are a few characters, like Neroon, who you can genuinely do a mini-watch just of the episodes they appear in. His arc from the "where is my war hero's body?" to "I do not think they would die for me. But they would die... for you." to actually dying for her. And where Branmer, the dead Minbari in his first episode, was originally Religious caste but became a war leader, Neroon reverses that journey and evens the scales. Agreed that Neroon is a fantastic character. I remain forever disappointed though that we never got a scene with John Vickery and Robin Sachs Minbari-ing it up together. That would've made for a fun scene.
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# ? Oct 14, 2020 18:21 |
Neroon is the best. Many B5 characters chew on the scenery. They but nibble in comparison to Neroon, who chews it up, spits it out, then feeds it to the audience like a proud mama bird.
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# ? Oct 14, 2020 19:01 |
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ConfusedUs posted:Neroon is the best. ftfy.
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# ? Oct 14, 2020 19:04 |
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ConfusedUs posted:Neroon is the best. Draal would like many loud words with this statement.
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# ? Oct 14, 2020 19:05 |
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Can you imagine if they had got Brian Blessed in the show?
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# ? Oct 14, 2020 19:39 |
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Doctor Zero posted:Can you imagine if they had got Brian Blessed in the show? He’d be a great First One
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# ? Oct 14, 2020 20:14 |
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Endless Trash posted:He’d be a great First One Not a great First One. The great First One. TICK, A POSSIBILITY FOR JOY IS GONE
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# ? Oct 14, 2020 20:35 |
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Doctor Zero posted:Can you imagine if they had got Brian Blessed in the show? "Sheridan's alive?!" I am now imagining his character in the same scene with Zathras. It may end violently.
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# ? Oct 14, 2020 20:58 |
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I'd love to have seen Brian Blessed's take on Cartagia.
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# ? Oct 14, 2020 22:42 |
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ultrafilter posted:I'd love to have seen Brian Blessed's take on Cartagia. Too likeable.
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# ? Oct 14, 2020 23:21 |
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Brian Blessed as Mollari. "Mr. Morden WHERE ARE MY SHADOW SHIPS?!"
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# ? Oct 15, 2020 02:35 |
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Brian Blessed as Mollari. "Mr. Morden WHERE ARE MY SHADOW SHIPS?!" I can hear this and it's beautiful.
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# ? Oct 15, 2020 03:10 |
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Brian Blessed as Morden: WHAT DO YOU WANT?? *screaming up the corridor chasing after people who turn around and run at the sight of him*
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# ? Oct 15, 2020 12:13 |
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Brian Blessed as Kosh: he doesn't say a lot, but when he talks, you listen.
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# ? Oct 15, 2020 12:47 |
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Brian Blessed as a random Centauri who gets in a shouting match with Draal.
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# ? Oct 15, 2020 13:25 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 23:54 |
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Honestly out of all the characters probably the best match for Brian was G'kar, but Andreas Katsulas perfected that role, so no dice.
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# ? Oct 15, 2020 13:33 |