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[syvarris]

@Radio

Okay, can do!  Unless given a different directive, I'll remind you guys once the new exo/unc stuff is all finished.  I'm guessing that's what's keeping you busy.

@Nun

Interesting book.  After doing a bit of research on what it's about, I have a lot of things to say.  However, they pretty much boil down to "Not if you're a utilitarian."

Also:

Most people have no idea just how vapid and insignificant their lives are.

HAHAHAHA!

[Nunzillor]

If you're a utilitarian it's essentially as much of a utopia as could ever be possible.  But if you place value on freedom, creative thought, and emotion, the society in A Brave New World closely resembles a dystopia.  The sods remind me of Deltas, cloned menial laborers conditioned from birth to accept their lot in life, dull but well trained, forever subservient to the higher castes.

[Parisbre56]

But what if they enjoy being slaves? Wouldn't it be wrong to make people unhappy and force them to be "free" against their will, just because their morals don't match yours? After all, you're doing two wrongs: forcing your will and your morals on them AND hurting them and making them unhappy.

[Unholy_Pariah]

Of course not.

If we have given them real freedom, then they a free to sell themselves back into slavery if they so choose.

[Nunzillor]

But what if they enjoy being slaves? Wouldn't it be wrong to make people unhappy and force them to be "free" against their will, just because their morals don't match yours? After all, you're doing two wrongs: forcing your will and your morals on them AND hurting them and making them unhappy.

They're quite literally conditioned from birth into accepting their role in society without  question.  Without that coercement, they would surely not tolerate being slaves.  Even with the coercement, I think a taste of freedom would be enough to make some of them see things differently.  Maybe.

[Parisbre56]

Haven't you been conditioned to think being creative and free is a good thing? Does that make it wrong?
Besides, not everyone subconsciously wants to be free. There are people who feel uncomfortable making choices, people who prefer to follow rather than to lead or people who prefer to have the illusion of choice rather than actual choice.
There are people who want to consume and perform simple tasks rather than create, people who prefer believing something they know is false just because it's more comfortable than facing the truth. Does that make them inferior to other people?

Just to be clear, I'm just having some fun playing the devil's advocate, I'm not advocating either for or against either world view. If you do not like this sort of conversation, I will stop.

[TheBiggerFish]

Haven't you been conditioned to think being creative and free is a good thing? Does that make it wrong?
Besides, not everyone subconsciously wants to be free. There are people who feel uncomfortable making choices, people who prefer to follow rather than to lead or people who prefer to have the illusion of choice rather than actual choice.
There are people who want to consume and perform simple tasks rather than create, people who prefer believing something they know is false just because it's more comfortable than facing the truth. Does that make them inferior to other people?

Just to be clear, I'm just having some fun playing the devil's advocate, I'm not advocating either for or against either world view. If you do not like this sort of conversation, I will stop.

You're doing a very convincing job of it.

[Parisbre56]

Well, I do it to myself all the time. It's always fun trying to poke holes in your ideas or try to take them to their logical extremes. It helps turn something I feel in my mind into something more concrete and easily understandable, something less fuzzy, if that makes sense. And it helps spot mistakes.

[Nunzillor]

Nah, I think it's interesting.  There is a difference between being someone who doesn't like to be a leader, someone who likes to be led by others, and being a slave.  To be clear, I don't mean figuratively being a slave to an ideology or to a way of thinking, or just being someone that isn't creative, I mean literally being forced to do manual labor for no benefit to yourself for the sake of others.  No human being naturally likes that, and looking at history at slave uprisings and abolishment by reputable governments at a global level, it seems less like I'm conditioned to say so and more like a moral inevitability.

Slavery, being bound to another's will, is such an extreme that it is difficult to conceive of anyone that would appreciate it. The same assertions you make were brought up by slavery advocates before it became illegal in America.  "They like to work, it's all they know!  It's just a way of life, and it's unfair of you to impose your cultural mindset on others!" Overwhelmingly, slaves were happy to be free, even in a society that was heavily prejudiced against them.  Slavery is a mistake.

[syvarris]

Spoiler: For size. (click to show/hide)

((Obligatory philosophy warning: I do not mean any of this to be offensive.  If anybody feels insulted in some fashion, please say so.  I will apologize and stop arguing.))

I actually agree with you on every count, except the implication that any of this applies to the epsilon/delta castes in Brave New World.

Now, I have not read the book itself, so if I'm wrong about something, just point it out and I will accede to you.

From what I've read, the lower castes are conditioned to believe that what they do is necessary for society to function.  They have a sense of superiority over the top castes, feeling that they couldn't do what the eps/delts do.  They also are conditioned to dislike responsibility, so they would hate to be in command and are happy that someone else does it.  Finally, everyone has had their negative emotions stripped from them, so nobody can really conceive of abusing the lower castes, let alone actually do so.

This leads to a creature which believes its current role in life is the best life possible.  It doesn't envy anyone, and doesn't dislike where it is.  I think this stands in direct contrast to real slaves, who justifiably hated their abuse, and envied their slavers.


I generally believe that a society without people having power over others would be ideal, but that's communism, and communism seems pretty much impossible.  It hinges on everybody being equal, and it's nearly impossible to keep everyone perfectly equal.  As soon as someone, through sheer luck, has more power than average, they can use that slight power advantage to gain more power.

In BRW's universe, all this is validated by experiments; They actually didn't need to have menial workers, but found that an automated society without real work led to anarchy.  I don't think that experiment would have the same result IRL, but in-universe it did, so you have to have workers.

So, BRW can't not have castes, either; Using an ideal caste system which can be maintained indefinitely is better than using no caste system, which will give rise to an uncontrolled non-ideal one.


...That went off on a bit of a tangent.  Essentially, the thrust of my argument is that I don't think the situarion of the eps/delts counts as slavery.  If you took a normal human and put them in that caste, they'd see it as slavery, yes.  However, nobody in that society is a normal human, and replacing anybody with one would still seem horrifying to said human.

Regardless of what you think of BRW, ER sods are easier to accept. They have no soul!  They're really nothing more than robots who use organic circuits.  It's way more immoral to use manipulator brains, because those were once thinking humans with families, and using them to power space magic subjects them to pain and torment.

[Parisbre56]

That is indeed a convincing argument. However, it is an argument about modern humans. But what happens when you try to apply that argument to a sci-fi setting? I mean, in a sci-fi setting, you can get all sorts of weird ethical problems you might have not even thought about. And because as a society we have not actually gone through the changes that come with the advancement of science or the changes in how the economy or the society or the government works (the steps through the discovery and/or adoption of a ground-breaking new thing and the adjustment of our moral system or the development of a new moral system around it) we tend to quickly apply our current morals to the situation without much thought about how the society in said fiction thinks and works or what the things in the story actually resemble, what their closest analogue to something in the modern world is.


So, to be specific, yes, there is a convincing argument that enslaving a human might be wrong, based on historical evidence. However, consider the argument from a different perspective. Is owning a work dog wrong? Dogs are intelligent. They can understand things, follow orders, make choices, display emotions... Yet many are imprisoned inside houses for people's entertainment while others are taken from a young age and trained to do something, without being given a choice. And if the training is right, they'll even learn to love their job and their trainer. But if they disobey their orders or do not behave as expected, they might end up cast out or worse killed, with a more suitable dog replacing them. The same argument could be made for any sort of domesticated animals, but dogs are usually the easiest to relate to.

So, we come down to two questions: What is the difference between a slave and a dog? I mean, if someone treated slaves like dogs or other work animals, kept them happy but forced them to do certain work, would what they are doing be morally questionable? And if so, why? What if they left dissidents leave and fend for themselves? Would they still be wrong?

And second and most important to our discussion, what is the difference between a Sod and a dog? After all, sods are intelligent but not as intelligent as humans, they were bred created to follow orders, they are usually taken care of and they are happy as long as they are following orders. True, they have some human DNA in them and look humanoid, but so do other primates.

((Again, just arguing for arguments sake. I agree that slavery is wrong. But it's fun to see someone's morals and way of thinking.))

[AoshimaMichio]

I suppose major problem with slavery is that you are using your own kin for it. But sods are not humans. They are engineered biological tools of war.

But then again ants use slavery. You can't even argue slavery is unnatural.

[Comrade P.]

I can't help but wonder if we could employ this sort of sod slavery debate to undermine UWM.

[Nunzillor]

Hmm.  Perhaps I see things differently than most...

Spoiler: @syvarris (click to show/hide)

You are right in that the delta/epsilon individuals do not perceive their situation as slavery.  They enjoy their work and status.  But I believe that it is cruel to strip humans of their natural capacity for reason, and then coerce them into believing things that are convenient for the propagation of the current government.  To damage the brains of others before birth and psychologically force them into menial labor is a heinous act, and we can see this, even if most in BNW's universe can't, because the government is not damaging us and conditioning us in that way since birth.  Perhaps I am in the minority, but it just seems wrong to do this to people.  It is creating a condition in which slavery would be seen as desirable by the enslaved, because the enslaved are damaged at a very basic level.

So perhaps it is acceptable at an individual level for those individuals, because they simply do not know any better and enjoy their situation, but at an administrative and societal level, with the reason that we are allowed to employ in our society, the deltas and epsilons do not appear to be in a desirable situation (at least, from my perspective).  Perhaps individual happiness is more important than stagnation and arguable societal moral bankruptcy... Not sure, I'll admit.  But I do want to ask, would you want to be an epsilon?

I do feel that humans should be allowed to reach their full potential, not just because it is a decent thing to allow, but also because it allows a society to be flexible and react appropriately to unexpected problems.  The BNW society is fragile.  But I guess that isn't really a moral argument...

Also, what do you mean when you say sods have no soul?  And I agree that the use of manipulator brains is worse.

The basic difference, I think, is that dogs don't have the potential for advanced reasoning, which is the crux of the issue, I feel.  The sods, on the other hand, are altered to be more stupid and more compliant.  They had the capability to be a regular human being like anyone else, but were damaged by the government (whether ARM or UWM) until they were almost like dogs.  That is a reprehensible act because is essentially killing the person they would have become.

But sods are not dogs, they are still human beings.  They have the capacity to understand complex languages, including written languages, and internalize complex training that would baffle any dog.  Or any primate other than sapiens, for that matter.  In my opinion, the sods have sufficiently advanced reasoning to be "eligible" for basic human rights, similarly to how sufficiently advanced AIs would deserve rights. 

Letting dissidents leave would be a good step.  I'm not sure if there would be more than a few due to the way they are created.  Not destroying humans' potential to bring them near the same level as dogs would be better.

[syvarris]

Spoiler: Size (click to show/hide)

Nun, you use a lot of terms like 'coerce' and 'force'.  Are you saying that to indicate the methods used to brainwash epsilons are cruel ("Are you happy, or do I need to hit you again?"), or just illustrating that you feel they are wrong?  My opinion is that if the methods used to brainwash the eps are unpleasant to the eps, then they are wrong (although the bad might be outweighed by the good they do).

As monstrous as this sounds, I don't believe there is anything you can do to a creature which is inherently evil--only things which are perceived as unpleasant/bad/negative by that particular creature are evil.  There's plenty of people who like things I dislike, and plenty who dislike things I like; It seems illogical to assume this doesn't apply to all of my preferences.  Also, things which aren't perceived are basically irrelevant to me, aside from those which might affect future perceptions--which are moral if they affect preferences positively, and immoral if they affect preferences negatively.

As such, I don't think anything done to any of BNW's citizens is immoral.  If an action doesn't make anyone suffer, and improves the lives of some people, it's a positive action.


You raised another point, of scientific stagnation.  I only partially agree with this.  On one hand, scientific progress generally increases happiness.  On the other hand, in BNW it requires instability, and scientific progress also sometimes results in really bad things--Nuclear weapons or global warming, for instance.  Also, my morality system pretty much completely breaks the moment you have AIs which can perfectly mimic humans.

I think BNW handles it fairly well, because (to my understanding) Alphas retain creativity and the ability to do science, and this is why they're sometimes 'buggy' and are exiled to one of the islands.  Also, the government in BNW seems willing to consider different systems; they wouldn't have run experiments with no caste system if they didn't think it might be better.  However, you're probably still correct that they're more stagnant than our own society.  Then again, most societies are more stagnant during peace than during war, but most wouldn't say that a society at war is better than one at peace.


As far as sods having no soul, it's never been explicitly stated to be a soul, but that seems like a pretty good name.  Space magic runs on humans sapient(?) beings who have lived their life experiencing things.  Space magic cannot be powered by sods, and we can't just alter how sods are grown a bit to change that--they're just missing a soul, regardless of their lifespan and experiences.  Also, we can 3d print a sod brain which functions exactly the same as a grown sod brain, but we can't do the same for, say, Milno.  There's something nonphysical which makes Milno Milno, at least in ER.


Lastly, I don't think you're in the minority believing that BNW's system is wrong.  I'm the only person who's actually disagreed with you--Paris said he's just playing devil's advocate.  I think BNW was sort of constructed specifically to bug people, because it deliberately builds a situation in which things we consider terrible are shown as positive, and then gives a logical argument for why they'd be positive.  I'll admit that I think BNW's society is horrifying, but I also acknowledge that I'm illogical for feeling that way.

Also, it only makes logical sense if you're a utilitarian.  While utilitarianism makes more sense to me than any other philosophy, I'm sure the reverse is true for other people.

@Comrade P.

It would be rather difficult to use this debate effectively.  Even if we could get people to care, we still use sods in overwhelming numbers.  The only real difference is that most of ours are robots with 3d printed organic brains, while the UWM only grows full-flesh sods.  Even that difference is just due to a massive resource and production disparity; We make robots because we have a massive industrial world full of metal and production lines, but relatively little organic material.