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[SalmonGod]

I wasn't trying to say anything profound about free will, but here is my personal take on it anyway.

Yes.  Theoretically, an entity with perfect knowledge should be able to predict with 100% accuracy what choice a person is going to make.  That doesn't mean the person didn't make that choice.  We do make choices.  However, our choices are not meant to define us as something separate from the rest of the universe.  It's all a matter of perspective.  From the perspective of a sufficiently detached being, the significance of what may seem to us like a choice that we made may look like nothing more than the collision of billiard balls.  That doesn't de-legitimize the reality that our perspective is to us.

I also think that things like legal or social pressures aren't limiters of free will.  Just because you're discouraged from doing something doesn't mean you can't do it.  That's only a matter of accepting consequences.  I think the only limitation on free will is knowledge.  You can't make a choice you don't realize you're capable of making.

[Sirus]

I'll co-Star Wars! I've probably forgotten more SW fluff than some people even knew existed

[SalmonGod]

I wasn't trying to say anything profound about free will, but here is my personal take on it anyway.

Yes.  Theoretically, an entity with perfect knowledge should be able to predict with 100% accuracy what choice a person is going to make.  That doesn't mean the person didn't make that choice.  We do make choices.  However, our choices are not meant to define us as something separate from the rest of the universe.  It's all a matter of perspective.  From the perspective of a sufficiently detached being, the significance of what may seem to us like a choice that we made may look like nothing more than the collision of billiard balls.  That doesn't de-legitimize the reality that our perspective is to us.

I also think that things like legal or social pressures aren't limiters of free will.  Just because you're discouraged from doing something doesn't mean you can't do it.  That's only a matter of accepting consequences.  I think the only limitation on free will is knowledge.  You can't make a choice you don't realize you're capable of making.

Almost forgot my main point....

Regardless of all that, my original point was that it's silly for an omniscient observer to punish the sentient beings unwittingly caught up in the situation that he is responsible for creating, because of behavior that he should have predicted and is ultimately the cause of.

[JoshuaFH]

How the hell did I never hear of this before? O_O
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaceful_nuclear_explosions

Peaceful nuclear explosions (PNEs) are nuclear explosions conducted for non-military purposes, such as activities related to economic development including the creation of canals. During the 1960s and 1970s, both the United States and the Soviet Union conducted a number of PNEs.

The Soviet program, known as Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy, was launched in 1958. The project saw 124 nuclear explosions for such tasks as digging canals and reservoirs, creating underground storage caverns for natural gas and toxic waste, exploiting oil and gas deposits and sealing gas leaks. It was finally mothballed by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989.

One of the first U.S. proposals for peaceful nuclear explosions that came close to being carried out was Project Chariot, which would have used several hydrogen bombs to create an artificial harbor at Cape Thompson, Alaska. It was never carried out due to concerns for the native populations and the fact that there was little potential use for the harbor to justify its risk and expense. There was also talk of using nuclear explosions to excavate a second Panama Canal.

"We have all these Nukes just LYING AROUND doing nothing, goddamnit daddy needs some fucking BOOM in his life. Is there a way to use them without ending the world?"

"...possibly..."

[alway]

And @Alway: I saw a program on Scifi about how a 'real' war with aliens would go, and the humans ended up using those devices as giant nuclear coin guns. It was kinda epic.

Uh, no... A real war with aliens would go something like this:
1. undetectable probe arrives in system
2. probe waits and collects data; perhaps for millennia; it could already be there now and could even have been there since before our ancestors walked upright.
3. aliens or automated probe protocols decide to wipe us out
4. undetectable nanobots (though in all likelihood, they could be on a pico or femto scale) are dispersed in the atmosphere
5. nanobots activate after dispersal, with effects ranging from instant death of all life to initiating planet-wide terraforming, depending on the goals of the probe.

Sheer statistics dictate that if we do encounter an alien race by them visiting us, they will be so technologically advanced relative to us as to make resistance not futile, but nonexistent. If they wanted us dead for whatever reason, every last human would be dead before we even had a second to realize something unusual was going on. Keep in mind, the universe is about 13.7 billion years old; we've been around as a species for only a few thousand, and only the last few hundred as a species capable of rapid technological progress. If an alien civilization found us, it may well be a billion years older than ours; it may have had millions of times the amount of time we have had to develop technology. We're talking top of the tech tree here (assuming it isn't turtles all the way down).

[rutsber]

That depends if the Force can penetrate Star Trek's shields.

Dibs on THIS argument. I got the Star Wars side, who's going to play Trekkie?

And @Alway: I saw a program on Scifi about how a 'real' war with aliens would go, and the humans ended up using those devices as giant nuclear coin guns. It was kinda epic.

*Looks at time*
Why not?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"We're doomed."

[Descan]

I actually like turtles. They're sufficiently cute.

[Sirus]

So, I just finished reading a review of the worst RPG system of all time...I'm not sure whether to be laughing at the insanity or committing suicide* out of sheer "humanity is screwed" ness.
I'm sure some of you can guess what game I'm talking about.

*exaggeration for dramatic purposes, I'll be damned** if I kill myself over a stupid RPG, no matter how terrible

**no pun intended

[GalenEvil]

assuming it isn't turtles all the way down

Didn't you know?! It's ALWAYS turtles all the way down

Aside from that bit of stupidity on my part, I pretty much agree with that entire post Alway. I think that the aliens have already come and gone though, and might get back to us around the 2050s so that we have a percentile chance of them not having to reteach us everything, again (like building pyramids and such, ranging from Central America/South America to Egypt and plenty of other places I am probably forgetting about). Maybe by the time we have supercomputers that can be painted onto walls by the thousands per room, and the means to generate electricity on the scale needed to make that feasible they will get back to us about that disc we sent up with our combined human knowledge.

Maybe that was a bit of a side-track; I'm sure it was. Meh, time to sleep now I guess

[Scelly9]

So, I just finished reading a review of the worst RPG system of all time...I'm not sure whether to be laughing at the insanity or committing suicide* out of sheer "humanity is screwed" ness.
I'm sure some of you can guess what game I'm talking about.

*exaggeration for dramatic purposes, I'll be damned** if I kill myself over a stupid RPG, no matter how terrible

**no pun intended

Linky?

[Sirus]

To what? The game, the review, or the TVTropes entry for the game?

[TheBronzePickle]

(like building pyramids and such, ranging from Central America/South America to Egypt and plenty of other places I am probably forgetting about)

I'm pretty sure that we could build the pyramids nowadays. Probably bigger and better than the originals.

[Sirus]

(like building pyramids and such, ranging from Central America/South America to Egypt and plenty of other places I am probably forgetting about)

I'm pretty sure that we could build the pyramids nowadays. Probably bigger and better than the originals.

Of course we could. Of course, now that we no longer have emperors that we view as gods, why would we? Waste of resources.

[Scelly9]

To what? The game, the review, or the TVTropes entry for the game?

ALL OF THEM! Or, the review at least.

[Sirus]

Trope page
Review

No way am I gonna search for the actual game's website