Democratic Libertarian Party HQ

[Cedayon]

Originally posted by Archaic
You know, I'd probably just ignore that assuming the person has a wall of ignorance too think to be breached. ^^;;;

Interestingly enough it was someones detailed (over 10 page) response to that same presentation that "broke through" my wall of ignorance on the matter... I sort of stopped caring about that particular debate, so it's something of a draw, but I'm sure you understand how hard it is to achieve even that in this matter


And about the Gennies... even you realize it can't be justified, as nice as the minerals could be... so let's just focus on getting some massive tech output to research some of the later (less problematic) mineral buildings

[GeneralTacticus]

*BUMP*, for the third time.

[Archaic]

Thing is, I'm not all too sure that they can't be justified. The inherient problem is that they're taken as being humans with restrictions built into their thought processes. But what about if one considered them as being robots of a kind? Yes, their makeup is organic, not mechanical, though that means squat all really. It's only our preconceptions of the term that limits a robot to being something mechanical. But if we expand it to something artificial......these are certainly that. It's not like they're bred in the normal sense of the term.

[GeneralTacticus]

True enough. You could argue that given that they wouldn't exist in the first place if we didn't create them, it's not really wrong to build parameters into them... after all, we do that already with presentient algorithms.

[Cedayon]

Those arguments could be made, yes... and we could have all sorts of massive debates over whether the subjects are our "property" because we made them, or whether they're "robots" or "humans", perhaps even get into the singularity-PB minefield of whether they have souls and what that would mean...

but let's not

[Maniac]

I presume we won't build the Cloning Vats either then?

[Cedayon]

Originally posted by Maniac
I presume we won't build the Cloning Vats either then?

Ah yes, I had that coming, didn't I...

In the case of the Cloning Vats its one of those things I would abhor RL, but grant one of the single most game-breaking-open advantages in all of SMAC... They don't cause any drones, though, so apparently the people don't mind them... I would likely abstain from any debate on whether to build them or not, simply because I don't want to be a jerk about something as critically important as the CVs.

[Pandemoniak]

Originally posted by Maniac
I presume we won't build the Cloning Vats either then?

Cloning Valts are used to clone separated organs that are used to maintain and prolongate life, decreasing drastically (almost suppressing) the number of deaths, thus increasing the net demographic flow.

[Maniac]

That's a totally different explanation than the game gives. In that case I could claim genejack factories are factories with workers who have genetically upgrades muscles, but have similar cognitive skills.

[GeneralTacticus]

Cloning Valts are used to clone separated organs that are used to maintain and prolongate life, decreasing drastically (almost suppressing) the number of deaths, thus increasing the net demographic flow.

Nope. They produce people, not organs. We wouldn't be seeing a pop-boom if they simply extended life, especially given that the LV would have been already developed by this time.

[Pandemoniak]

"We should take only the greatest minds, the finest soldiers, the most faithful servants, multiply them by thousandsfolds and release them in ??? for a new era of glory"
Colonel Santiago Corazon,
The Councel of War.

Okay, thats quite hard to defend indeed...

[GeneralTacticus]

Although, as with retroviral engineering, Santiago's use of the Vats is just one use to which they can be put. Weapons aren't immoral because some people use them to kill innocents.

[Lemmy]

You could argue that weapons are immoral because their only use is to harm/kill people.

[GeneralTacticus]

Not really. They can also be used for hunting (well, not really here... but still), and, of course, they can be used for self-defence.

[Pandemoniak]

I wont argue for ages, but to me, weapons are immoral because their only purpose is murder, may it be hunting -- while there is agriculture and breeding cattles -- moreover hunting is done with no weapons on Centauri -- or self defence, since what are you gonna defend of, if no one has weapons ?