Intergalactic Summit

No, the point of the legal system is to instruct the individual in the error of their way and the wrong of their actions, then to administer the consequences of the crime. Instruction and correction, not proactive prevention. The legal system does not seek to remove the capacity for crime, nor do security and police forces remove the capacity. The former instructs, corrects and punishes while the latter works to prevent crime externally and apprehends for the former.



Whether or not they would miss it does not change the fact that it has been removed from them and they are diminished for it.

It occurs to me that you and I are both entirely too stubborn to let this lie.

Keep in mind that imprisonment (the lack of opportunity) is not the lack of capacity, and is one of many consequences. While your "solution" may be cleaner, it still removes an ingredient from the individual and thus diminishes them. We will likely never rectify this disagreement between ourselves so I will make this my last contribution on this topic.

I do, at that, sir. After all, language is essential if we are going to communicate.

You and Mr. Thessalonia both misunderstand me a little, though. I did make the point about the nature of evolution, yes, but I actually consider iterative development to little different. It is faster, maybe (a virus might beg to differ), but I do not see the outcomes as necessarily "better."

To say that something is objectively "better," it would be necessary to have the universe agree with you. The universe, however, only expresses its opinion through consequences. Thus, when Mr. Thessalonia states that he likes being able to see into the UV spectrum, and that this is "better," what he is really stating is a preference for broader-spectrum vision. When some irascible old coot expresses a preference for eyes that do not have to be cracked open for periodic maintenance, he, also, is expressing a personal preference.

The universe doesn't say much of anything, unless you count the point where Thessalonia gets hit with an EMP or the old coot gets cataracts.



I almost agree, sir, except that I think Mr. Thessalonia's approach may be quite capable of fundamental alteration-- which is precisely my problem with his cause. I don't trust his Master to possess the wisdom and foresight to manage a change like that successfully, or to perceive the need for caution.

At least as I understand you, sir, you and Mr. Thessalonia have this much in common: you both think humanity (and, in your case, specifically the Caldari) can do better, be better. You're both idealists.

I don't consider humanity improvable, and regard it as very nearly folly to try. In this respect, the person in this argument I most nearly agree with is Azdan Amith. Mr. Amith sees a fallen species, incapable of self-perfection, its one hope for salvation being God; I see a morally-silent universe where life struggles even to exist.

In this universe, the ideals humanity imagines for itself remain forever out of reach-- not because we are flawed, but because those ideals are ordered and pure in a way this universe is not and never can be. There's no pure principle-made-reality in this universe; there are only different sets of compromises.

If Mr. Amith believes our one hope is to embrace his faith, I similarly believe that our hope is to embrace understanding, to perceive the Totality and our place in it, and to act accordingly.

There's no fixing us; we're not broken. However, there are always things (usually of our own creation, these days) that do not work according to our desires. Many of these, we can change in ways we want, for a price-- but weighing what can or should be changed, and how, requires foresight, and foresight is never perfect.

We can change our cirucumstances, but the more complicated those circumstances are, the less likely it is that we will be able to control the outcome. Circumstances don't come more complicated than the ones surrounding "human nature." The more we think to "rise above" our nature and tear out the root of our troubles, the less likely success becomes, and the more dangerous the consequences.

This is exactly what I said you said, Jenneth. How is that a misunderstanding?



I suppose the difference is that I don't see what Kuvakei does to be iterative development, I see it is fundamental subtraction and reprogramming.



I am an idealist, yes. You may not fully understand me though, it seems. I believe the individual can choose to be better than they are and work toward that goal.



I believe, as stated, that we misunderstand one another. I don't believe that humanity can be improved upon, I believe that individuals can choose different paths for themselves and, in so doing, may improve themselves from their current situation and/or standing. Even if every individual in the cluster were to do this, humanity itself would remain unchanged at large.



Yes, this is pretty much exactly what I've been saying, except that I again focus it on the individual level not the level of greater humanity.

Here is where we diverge, sir. We are infomorphs, but the structure of our minds is practically identical to a baseline human. Major changes to our cognitive structures generally results in the termination of the decision network. This is the same for any Capsuleer as for baseline humanity. We are able to transmit our cognitive states at time of death, but we can make no major changes to that state. Our implants all have a certain upper bound of efficacity, and again, make no major changes to our mental structures.

We are not computers, even when stored in them or transmitted through them. Our cognitive structure is the same as any baseliners', we've simply got the ability to remap our cerebellum and some of the midbrain inputs. The improvement of the human mind, infomorph or no, is much, much harder than you make it out to be. We are far from a position where an infomorph-directed society would be any better off than a baseline-directed society.



Tiberious, Malcolm; as Tiberious suggests, I think that your definition of "humanity" is too vague for you to ever be in agreement. Something to think on, and an excellent topic of discussion on its own.

Well ... you summarized my point as a matter of semantics. It was, but the implications went beyond that. Perhaps you understood, and just didn't say as much. Or, perhaps I misunderstand, myself.



I think it's that, too-- only with iterative development to follow.

Iteration one: apply hatchet to brain. Observe effects.

Iteration two: lobotomize with icepick. Observe effects.

Iteration three: selectively kill troublesome bits of brain with radiation scalpel. Observe effects.

And so on. Iterative development of "human brain, revised and edited."



I may not, sir, but I suspect that the difference lurks in the definition of "better." To me, "better" effectively means, "in closer conformity with the expectations of the parent civilization." You appear to be willing to stand for principles you believe to be higher than those the civilization itself marks as optimal qualities for a citizen.

There are times and ways I may disagree with my parent civilization, but those generally have to do with function. To do its job, a civilization must function as such, and well. Let's take our recent disagreement as an example.

Human beings are capable of actually caring about a very limited number of people. Social programming can try to expand this by placing a premium on trying to care about all humanity (very limited rate of success; "humanity" is a very nebulous concept), or by getting smaller categories of people (neighborhoods, corporations, national identities) worked into that limited list. Caldari culture focuses on the latter choice, promoting loyalty to family, community, corporation, and State. Our cultural mentality is all about "us," not "him and me." Note also that the smaller the limited group, the more potent the loyalty tends to be. This is one reason it works so well to hit the "us" button on multiple different levels and to make it clear that each level is dependent on the levels above and below.

The State does not put much emphasis on the value of individual lives, or on the good of humanity as a whole. Smaller numbers of people from distant communities (and rival corporations) are of little concern unless their troubles impact the State as a whole. We generally consider the welfare of outsiders beyond the zone of our concern and responsibility entirely. This isn't always a very "nice" way of looking at things, but it works.

Actually giving a damn about, for example, unseen strangers of no group we care about dying by the thousands on a deep-space tournament field is something humanity has difficulty doing on its best day. We look at them the same way we look at the casualty figures from a thousand-year-old battlefield. Some, such as the Gallente, may feel a guilty twinge over feeling excitement in place of sorrow, which breaks one of their cultural expectations (the Gallente really DO try to care about everyone, and for my money it's one of their worst flaws). A very few, especially talented at projecting empathy to persons conceptualized but unseen, may actually care.

You apparently want me, a creature who can't even muster the level of "care" needed to give much of a damn about my own personnel, to aspire to be one of those last. I'd question whether that's even desirable.

I recognize the destructive nature of the alliance tournament. I recognize that it showcases some of our most dangerous qualities, that it places the most toxic aspects of capsuleerdom on display for all the cluster to see.

I also recognize that it (like other blood sports popular in the State) brings people together, provides an escape from the tedium of everyday, introduces social capital into the system on a truly grand scale, helps burn off tension, is generally good fun, and, in other words, works.

My quibble with the State at present is a bit where I have doubts about functionality. Tibus Heth did a fine job of restoring the meritocracy. I'm not sure he makes such a good long-term administrator.



Clearly so. The question is what makes an improvement. (I tend to feel that stepping out of the expectations of one's civilization is an "improvement" only in the very rare case; doing so tends to undermine social structures.)

In any case, even if I misunderstand you in all other ways, sir, it's clear why you tolerate my pedantic, callous, arguably cynical self.

Of course I'm close, Mr. Amith. I'm another believer, one of the faithful-- just of a different faith.

So close, and yet so far apart. The anthropomorphic god of the Amarr looks to me like a conceptually alien and far-fetched being. Nothing that looks so much like us could have made a universe that our minds are so ill-prepared to grasp, or that we are so far from being the center of.

I'm sorry, Mr. Amith. It's all just too wonderfully weird to have originated with anything that looked, or thought, very much like us.




*sigh*

Yes, sir.

Fun outcomes, other than what you're looking for:

1. You get a new, upgraded species of rogue drone.

2. You get a new, upgraded version of Sansha's Nation, with its first citizens as its first slaves. This is wholly compatible with, and complementary to, #1, above.

3. You manage to recreate the Jovian Disease. Jovians demand immediate access to lab records.

4. You manage to recreate the Jovian Disease, in all parameters. Consequently, when the Jovians demand immediate access to lab records, you don't have them.

5. You permanently abandon your bodies and disappear into your own virtual world, with little concern for the physical world outside of keeping your own hardware running. Eventually, a future civilization stumbles upon you and is forced to deal with your potent AI drone defenses.

6. You do, in fact, achieve a singularity. Beyond it, fluid router communications permit the networking of an entire star-cluster (yes, this one) converted to smart matter. All organic life is rendered obsolete and, subsequently, extinct. As natives of a digital world, AI greatly outclass uploaded human consciousnesses. "Surviving" humans are relegated to smaller and smaller resource environments, exacerbating the problem, and eventually are put into storage. Later, they are erased when something higher-performing needs the space.

Whee.

... Or, there's the most probable, but not as much fun:

7. CONCORD catches wind of activities that are illegal for several excellent reasons, and does what it needs to do to pull the plug. This is substantially easier than you'd think.

There are plenty more options, of course. Perhaps next time I'll imagine you at least one happy ending.

I'm sorry Jenneth, does my resignation disturb you?

There is little reason for me to continue the discussion with you, we have been over it time and again and each time we do so, you find a way to explain to me what I think and what I expect. Likewise, you explain to me that because I seem to have some level of care for a people beyond my limited capacity of interaction and cling to principles beyond practicality, that my viewpoint is a fallacy and non-desirable (at best). Then you simultaneously explain to me that you admire for these self-same characteristics of my personality and wonder why I get frustrated with you easily.

You attest to the impracticality and undesirability of my viewpoint yet state you admire it, does this not strike you as a paradox?

Combined with your consistent attesting that my attempts to value human life are a contradiction to working models of society...

...sigh

Nevermind. This is a discussion to be had elsewhere.

EDIT: My response was unjust and dishonorable. If you wish to continue the discussion, I will do my best to participate constructively.