Is Alpha Centauri Intellectually Discriminating?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Mr. President
Okay, maybe it's a little funny.

Humor is when bad things happen to other people.

[GeneralTacticus]

Is Alpha Centauri Intellectually Discriminating?

No. Being a Drone isn't indicative of being 'inferior', just not as productive and happy a citizen. Think of unemployed urban gangs vs. skilled techicians, scientists, academics etc. when you look at Drones vs. Talents.

Does this congure an image of the feudal pyramidical society? Is this New World Order in action?

Depending on the way you play the game, it's possible for almost everyone to become a talent (which incidentally, is something that Huxley viewed as impossible).

I agree. Maybe true happiness in a society is found without leaders or masters. But we are far from that, still got a lot to learn as a species.

I've never considered anarchy to be particularly cheerful...

The way I always saw the Telepathic Matrix video, it's not so much thought control as emotional influence - the Empathi project 'good vibes', dissuading people from committing violent acts and so on. So not actually tweaking their thoughts, but making them feel nicer.

I would see it as basically an implemantion of the BNW - no-one does anything wrong because no-one wants to. Dictatorship by choice.

[Kirov]

Originally posted by GeneralTacticus

Depending on the way you play the game, it's possible for almost everyone to become a talent (which incidentally, is something that Huxley viewed as impossible).

Yeah, and look at the way they make workers from drones - the police and rec commons. I'm sure that Empaths are just a branch of security service.

I would see it as basically an implemantion of the BNW - no-one does anything wrong because no-one wants to. Dictatorship by choice.

IIRC, no-one could choose anything in BNW - they were all manipulated, created to be as they were. Hence there's no point in talking about free will there.

[GeneralTacticus]

IIRC, no-one could choose anything in BNW - they were all manipulated, created to be as they were. Hence there's no point in talking about free will there.

They were 'socially engineered' so that they could be given free will and they would still do what they were supposed to.

[Kirov]

Don't you find free will and doing what supposed to do mutually exclusive?

[Kirov]

Originally posted by GeneralTacticus


They were 'socially engineered' so that they could be given free will and they would still do what they were supposed to.

Oh, and IIRC they were not 'socially engineered', but simply 'engineered'

[GeneralTacticus]

Don't you find free will and doing what supposed to do mutually exclusive?

No. I am (or will be) supposed to pay taxes. At the same time, by choice, I can refuse to, or evade them. However, I can also choose to do as I am supposed to.

Oh, and IIRC they were not 'socially engineered', but simply 'engineered'

I was talking about the mental and social aspects, not the physical ones.

[Tommara]

Originally posted by Kirov
Don't you find free will and doing what supposed to do mutually exclusive?

That would be true only if you only want to do things you are not supposed to do.

Edited note: Forming sentences is hard before you've had enough coffee.

[Kirov]

To General Tacticus: Please correct if I'm wrong, but in the BNW they were engineered prenatally to do what supposed to do. Social engineering is only secondary to it. If you had been genetically engineered to pay taxes, then, although you would have had a choice of refusal (in the sense of physical capability to say 'no'), this choice would not have been real, because you wouldn't have even considered the refusal. Arachnophob has a choice whether to kiss a spider or not, but it's irrelevant, because he simply won't do this. It's not the real choice.
Uff, I hope it's correct English.

To Tommara: I see your point, but I disagree with you. If it's predictable you will do what you are supposed to do, you don't make real choices. You just do things, not choose to do them.

[Tommara]

Originally posted by Kirov


To Tommara: I see your point, but I disagree with you. If it's predictable you will do what you are supposed to do, you don't make real choices. You just do things, not choose to do them.

That is not what "mutually exclusive" means, so perhaps it's a language problem, although I viewed it as a math/logic problem.

See for example: http://www.mathgoodies.com/lessons/v...exclusive.html

Specifially:

Definition: Two events are mutually exclusive if they cannot occur at the same time (i.e. they have no outcomes in common).

Since one can most certainly exercise free will AND do what one is supposed to, they are not mutually exclusive propositions.

[Tommara]

On second thought, it also might depend upon what you meant (or how you defined) "free will" and "doing what one is supposed to". I'll go back and ponder that, but it might also help if you explicitly defined them.

[Tommara]

I think I see the problem. "Doing what you are supposed to do" has two different meanings.

One is "doing what is right/correct/proper" and is what I thought was meant.

The other does have the connotation of "doing what was intended" which might have been what you meant since you used the word "predictable".

Now I must go do what I'm supposed to be doing.

Edited note: Grrr. "Intended" as in pre-ordained, foretold, destined, etc. Words give me a headache sometimes, reminds me of why I abandoned liberal arts for engineering.

[bondetamp]

Can we really say that anyone has free will? Are we not just products of our genes and our experiences?

Truly, what matters aren't whether or not one has free will, but whether or not one maintain the illusion that one has.

Brave New World had no Talents or Drones in the sense presented in SMAC. There were no Drone revolts, or even hints of the possibility, and Talents? The intelectual elite was high on Soma or participating in orgies most of the time. It is a good while sinse I read the book, but I honestly can't remember a single time any of the Alpha Pluses did anything creative or inspiring. The whole system was geared towards preserving the status quo, and geniuses weren't only not needed, they were counter productive to such a policy.

[moomin]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Naturally, those sent to Alpha Centauri would have to be rather proficient in a number of fields - the technological and societal elite, if you like.

Don't be so sure. The Unity was an UN mission, after all - you can bet political correctness filled a lot of berths in that ship. Oh, you get the Einsteins and the von Brauns, but you get the Louis Farrakhans and Catharine MacKinnons as well. In fact, the latter category probably dominates in terms of crew numbers.

[Tommara]

Is Alpha Centauri Intellectually Discriminating?

No. Sometimes differences do make a difference.

[Markus The Mighty]

Originally posted by GeneralTacticus
No. Being a Drone isn't indicative of being 'inferior', just not as productive and happy a citizen. Think of unemployed urban gangs vs. skilled techicians, scientists, academics etc. when you look at Drones vs. Talents.

I'd put it even simpler: Talents are the 'happy' people, the supporters of your policies, the ones actively participating in your society and profiting from it.

The drones, on the other hand, are those who reject your policies, the disappointed and displeased.
That's why the University produces so many drones... Zak is so unethical in his scientific methods, his policies are just bound to repulse the major part of his citizens - who in turn become 'drones' (ie, repulsed and therefore supressed by the government, think about communists in the US or democratic movements in fundamentalist states)

[Kirov]

To Tommara: doing what supposed to do means for me that you do what 'the others' (in a sociological sense, i.e. everyone who affect or can affect your life) expect from you. You do what is expected because it's expected, not because it's best for you or you want do this. Sometimes you feel like doing something, but you don't do this because it's forbidden. It happens to everyone everyday, but when it happens too often, and your behaviour is too predictable (he will do that because 'everyone' do that in such situations), then you lack free will, and your choices are empty.

[Tommara]

To Kirov: I don't disagree with that, just disagree with the "mutual exclusive" part. There are quite a few things that I'm supposed to do AND I enjoy doing them, so would do them of my own free will.

Edited Note:

Doh, you're from Poland *smacks self on forehead*. Have you lived there all your life? If so, you're life was probably a lot different than mine, raised as I was in a small city (so small, some might call it just a town) in America's heartland.

Your ideas on "doing what one is supposed to" might differ a lot from mine. Another gamer friend once posted:

This brought to mind a quote from one of the most popular and beloved children authors here in Norway, Thorbjorn Egner. He is famous for writing about a small town and its various inhabitants. The main law, as quoted by its chief of police, was: "Man skal ikke plage andre, man skal være god og snill. Og forøvrig kan man gjøre som man vil". Which roughly translates into: "You are not supposed to bother others. Just be kind and nice. And besides that You can do whatever you want to."

My life has been somewhat like that, except when it comes time to pay taxes and the like. I don't even pay much attention to "Just be kind and nice" part, heh. So even doing stuff that I was supposed to - even if I didn't want to - hasn't been terribly onerous. Going to the dentist is very high on my list.

Your mileage might have varied.

P.S. Anybody here from Norway to tell me if I need to hunt down my Norwegian friend to complain about his translation?

[GeneralTacticus]

You do what is expected because it's expected, not because it's best for you or you want do this.

I am not expected to go and jump off a bridge. Nor do I want to.

[CEO Aaron]

Philosophers have debated the nature of free will and whether humans in fact really possess it for hundreds, if not thousands of years. You're not going to settle that question here. On to address the actual thread topic:

Alpha Centauri uses the terms 'Drone' and 'Talent' not to denote a predestined classes of citizens, but to signify what percentage of your populace is meshing with your society effectively at that moment. This year's drones can be next years talents, depending on how much of your budget/manpower you divert toward improving their opportunities.

In this respect, I think that Alpha Centauri (and in fact all Civ games) are far less 'intellectually discriminating' than real life. (If only we _could_ eradicate crime and poverty by merely spending a third of national budget.) Alpha Centauri does offer some pretty brutal and inhuman modes of marginalizing malcontents, but no worse than we see in the world today. You need an example? Check out this link:

http://www.mertonai.org/amina/

(While you're at it, sign the letter.)

[Kirov]

Well, I think I made a mistake using term "mutually exclusive" in incorrect way, of common sense rather than of logic (you have always free will in theoretical meaning, even enslaved, and you can always make choices, even when it comes to choose between obeying the orders or being arrested/beaten/murdered by the police).

In BNW, however, I still claim people have no free will, as they are engineered both prenatally and sociologically, so their free will is only an academic problem. It can exist in math way, but not in everyday life.

To Tommara: I somehow knew that it would come to comparing life in West and life in postSoviet countries.

Yes, I live in Poland from my birthday and I agree that mileage can determine definitions of such terms like 'doing what supposed to do'. I must admit I'm somewhat paranoid and consider many of the social rules and norms as a constant threat to my own freedom. Dunno whether it's because I live in Poland, tho, as I have never lived abroad.

[Tommara]

To Kirov: I'm not sure why a problem approached by logic would result in a different answer than one approached by common sense, unless an error had occurred somewhere.

I do know that I don't consider a work of fiction as "evidence" of anything. I do recognize that BNW attempts to take social/governmental influences to extremes to illustrate a point. I just don't consider Aldus Huxley (? was that who wrote it?) sufficiently an expert to accept his theories as truth.

While I would not accept theories propounded by a work of fiction as the truth, your real world experiences are certainly not in that category, and as such, is much more persuasive evidence.

I'm sorry if I offended you by referring to differences in our two cultures as being a possible reason for differences in our point of view. It just seemed to me to be a perfectly valid reason for the differences in our conclusions. I'm only now just beginning to understand why people might hate Americans for the things we take for granted.

I have enjoyed our discussion since I really enjoy rational debates. BTW, I'm half Polish, although my father's family came here in about 1910, so the Polish roots have had a long time to fade.

To CEO Aaron: "Free will" from a theological perspective is certainly a debate I'd shy away from, which is one of the reasons I tried to clarify definitions very early on.

[Mr. President]

I'm not sure why a problem approached by logic would result in a different answer than one approached by common sense

Suppose you wish to travel in a straight line from point A to point B. First you travel half the distance. Then you travel half the remaining distance. Then half the smaller remaining distance again.

But no matter how small the remaining distance to point B, you can always travel half of it, since this number becomes increasingly small but can never go to zero. So it is impossible to move from one point to another.

[GeneralTacticus]

That logic is flawed because you don't have to travel half the remaining distance. You can travel all of it.

[gwillybj]

I'll avoid some redundancy by partially quoting CEO Aaron:

Alpha Centauri uses the terms 'Drone' and 'Talent' not to denote a predestined classes of citizens, but to signify what percentage of your populace is meshing with your society effectively at that moment. This year's drones can be next years talents, depending on how much of your budget/manpower you divert toward improving their opportunities.

In general, the easiest way to reduce Drones is to make one of them a Specialist. This is by far my preferred method.

One way to look at it would be to say I've promoted a Talent, filled the vacancy with a Worker, and filled that vacancy with a Drone.

I hold to a more positive view, though: I have taken an unhappy group of citizens (remember: each icon represents 10,000 people) and given them the opportunity - with unencumbered access and full support - to have a very significant role in their society.

[Alinestra Covelia]

I don't think there's any real intellectual discrimination when I play SMAC. Since I play as the Hive, all my citizens are as miserable malcontents anyway.

[Mr. President]

That logic is flawed because you don't have to travel half the remaining distance. You can travel all of it.

But you're approaching the problem with common sense, as Zeno did not.

[Frankychan]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
I don't think there's any real intellectual discrimination when I play SMAC. Since I play as the Hive, all my citizens are as miserable malcontents anyway.

Another Hive fan! Chairman Yang is the best!

Sorry for the threadjack, but you guys are taking it kinda too seriously!

[GeneralTacticus]

But you're approaching the problem with common sense, as Zeno did not.

I can't see any difference between the answers produced by comon sense and those produced by logic, because logically, you don't have to travel by proportion to the remaining distance.

[The Vagabond]

It seems that the terms `talent' and `drone' emerged merely in the context of general terminology substitution in SMAC as compared to Civ2:

food -> nutrients
shields -> minerals
trade -> energy
settler -> colony pod
city -> base
happy citizen -> talent
unhappy citizen -> drone

SMAC designers have deliberately avoided using Civ2 terms in SMAC. I wonder why. Perhaps it was simply a matter of copyright (Civ2 is not a property of Firaxis).