Armageddon???? - Part Eighty One Up

[Nova Andromeda]

-Mr. Wong, what do you think about cases where it isn't a genocidal species? How about a species with equal or better 'ethical behavior' and for whatever reason we need to decide which species survives. It could be a peaceful decision with one species simply dying off slowly and in comfort mind you. Of course, it could also be a massively bloody war. I think population numbers would be more of a minor factor (compensated for by future potential population) and the species with greatest potential should be allowed to survive.

-I do wonder what ethics would look like once we pass the technological level required to convert ourselves to artificial general intelligences (a long ways to go I know, perhaps not the way to go too, but possible in theory). Once an 'intelligence' is no longer welded to a specific body and can be turned on/off or modified easily it seems that ethical utility calculations get a whole lot messier.


-Mr. Wong and Surlethe: The 'put humanity first' (i.e., at the expense of other sentients) stance is itself hostile. It's much more alarming if it ever gets out that humanity has 'exercised' that option in the past. Why would other species wait on humanity's judgement of their power when they can quite reasonably adopt a first strike policy without smearing their own ethical standing.

[Darth Wong]

Mr. Wong, what do you think about cases where it isn't a genocidal species? How about a species with equal or better 'ethical behavior' and for whatever reason we need to decide which species survives.

We obviously try to make it ourselves. The other species would do the same. This is a retarded scenario.

It could be a peaceful decision with one species simply dying off slowly and in comfort mind you.

No it couldn't. You're trying to concoct ridiculous scenarios in order to salvage your broken argument, which started because you thought you could bowl over your opposition by hitting them with sanctimonious bullshit.

Mr. Wong and Surlethe: The 'put humanity first' (i.e., at the expense of other sentients) stance is itself hostile. It's much more alarming if it ever gets out that humanity has 'exercised' that option in the past. Why would other species wait on humanity's judgement of their power when they can quite reasonably adopt a first strike policy without smearing their own ethical standing.

Idiotic bullshit. This is like saying that any creature with a self-defense instinct should automatically be assumed to be hostile and exterminated. In effect, you are saying that the self-preservation instinct itself is evil. And yet, without that instinct, no species would survive. Your lunatic view of ethics reflects poorly on you, not anyone else.

[Marko Dash]

found this randomly wading through the internet. was looking for seals and shields for bomber textures IIRC. looks like a southpark stargate reference but it works here too.

http://media.southparkstudios.com/media ... uke_em.jpg

[K. A. Pital]

Wait, there's a race that wants to go complete xenocide on humans and the most we did to them is a Sarin attack and artillery bombardment?

Yeah, real bad. I feel for the imaginary demons. Or not.

Really, the demon psychology and the will to exterminate, torture and kill humans by almost every demon out there make it pretty certain any and all weapons will be used to stop them.

A total war with a xenocidal species will most likely run that way, and you'd hardly express much regret over the act were it real.

[JBG]

"Starglider wrote:

Out of curiosity if you had a choice between say all the English-speaking countries in the world being wiped out, and all the other humans on earth being wiped out, would you still save yourself (and your family)? If not, why not?

Bayonet wrote:

in a minute. And I would seek to kill anyone who stood in my way. Our side winning is the only law."

I'm with Dennis. Human nature and all that. I do recognise that there are widely divergent opinions here though. The question was pretty clear even given the delicious ambiguities of the English language.

Think on what - "Nations do not survive by setting examples for others, Nations survive by making examples of others" really means. It is not a philosophy or a desire etc, it is more an observation.

Stas Bush wrote:

"Wait, there's a race that wants to go complete xenocide on humans and the most we did to them is a Sarin attack and artillery bombardment?

Yeah, real bad. I feel for the imaginary demons. Or not.

Really, the demon psychology and the will to exterminate, torture and kill humans by almost every demon out there make it pretty certain any and all weapons will be used to stop them.

A total war with a xenocidal species will most likely run that way, and you'd hardly express much regret over the act were it real."

Yeah but you don't just rush out with your biggest weapon ( eg an ICBM ) simply because a bunch of xenocidal chip munks come-a-calling. Stuart is proposing a rational use of the weaponry available given what seems to be needed on the basis of experience and observation. Not to mention that we know scant little of Yahweh's abilities and those of his/her/what! minions.

Jonathan

[Starglider]

Ethics codes are like mathematics and theology: self-contained, axiomatic systems.

Like all axiomatic systems, they can be inconsistent, which is a fairly clear indication of failure. Inconsistent axiom sets can remain more or less stable in beings like humans, but they're usually unstable in fully transparent intelligent agents, and quickly self-modify into a stable configuration.

I see no reason why I should accept your system of ethics

There isn't a truly objective justification for any ethical system. You can only really argue on outcomes (in the bizarre game-theory sense of 'acting like you have these ethics isn't actually the best way of achieving the desired outcomes for these ethics' - not really solving the problem) and appeals to the human sense of arbitariness.

The other options are of course bribing people to agree with you (unreliable), forcing people to agree with you (unreliable unless you use as-yet-unavailable brain alteration technology) and killing everyone who doesn't agree with you. I'd generally try and apply them in that order.

one that apparently embraces the extinction of humanity as a good thing (!)

As an extreme edge case for a situation that is just about impossible in real life, but unrealistic/extreme edge cases are one of the key tools for evaluating ethical systems.

in favor of mine, which notes that ethics exists to serve humanity.

Dirty liberal, caring about 'humanity'. Why, you should only care about your country. Aren't you a patriot boy! Not that those northerners are much good either. In fact no real sense caring about non-locals. Course those no-good latino neighbours, why should you care about them? Lazy sods. No, only people in your church are really worth caring about. Though if you had to chose between them and your family, 'course your family wins. And let's face it, you'd leave them in a second if that hot secretary would actually agree to go out with you.

See where this is going? No system of ethics is objectively wrong (at least, consistent ones) but most humans dislike arbitariness, and points between 'me' and 'all intelligences' (which a mild exception for 'my genes') are more arbitrary. You don't have to apply parsimony to ethical systems the way you do to scientific theories, but don't you think it's a good idea?

In your hypothetical scenario where some genocidal species which outnumbers us is attempting to wipe us out, act utilitarianism might actually arrive at the conclusion that it is ethical to let them wipe us out, while rule utilitarianism would not,

Strictly true, but it's very difficult to construct a scenario in which the species that initiated the agression would be the one more likely to respect life / freedom / welfare for all beings going forwards. As such under even highly general utilitarianism it effectively always makes sense to slaughter the would-be invaders - but not exterminate their entire species if you can avoid it.

Of course there is a significant minority of humans here in favour of an entirely pre-emptive relativistic kill vehicle strike, who probably still think they have superior ethics.

I'm afraid this is a side-track from the story, but this stuff is really, really important to my field (which I happen to think is really, really important full stop) so I have a tendency to go on about it.

[Bayonet]

-Mr. Wong, what do you think about cases where it isn't a genocidal species? How about a species with equal or better 'ethical behavior' and for whatever reason we need to decide which species survives.

Simple. Our species survives, or dies trying.

It could be a peaceful decision with one species simply dying off slowly and in comfort mind you.

It wouldn't be peaceful at home. Any entities seriously standing in the way of survival would be exterminated. Nothing personal, just business. Ethics would not even be considered. Only survival. Species that do not follow that rule cease to exist. Darwin is a tough rulemaker.

It is easy to philosophize about survival from a distance. When it's your survival it gets more personal. Our side wins. That is the only rule.

[K. A. Pital]

Any entities seriously standing in the way of survival would be exterminated.

Seriously?

How about the people who sacrificed their lives in a war to save more lives - do they have a broken ethics system, or is your system a little off?

You seem to bring the issue down even to a personal level, i.e. "if it's a choice between me and all others dying, I'd prefer all others".

Many humans whom the social consensus considers moral men, died to choose the life of others.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Any entities seriously standing in the way of survival would be exterminated.

Seriously?

How about the people who sacrificed their lives in a war to save more lives - do they have a broken ethics system, or is your system a little off?

You seem to bring the issue down even to a personal level, i.e. "if it's a choice between me and all others dying, I'd prefer all others".

Many humans whom the social consensus considers moral men, died to choose the life of others.

Perhaps he meant species survival?

[The Grim Squeaker]

Any entities seriously standing in the way of survival would be exterminated.

Seriously?

How about the people who sacrificed their lives in a war to save more lives - do they have a broken ethics system, or is your system a little off?

You seem to bring the issue down even to a personal level, i.e. "if it's a choice between me and all others dying, I'd prefer all others".

Many humans whom the social consensus considers moral men, died to choose the life of others.

Those moral men died to save the lives of others from their species. (And usually from the same group within their species, although immense exceptions exist, such as those who saved people in the Holocaust).
I'd love to hear of a generally judged as "moral" person who did not favour HUMAN life over other forms of life .
"If it's a choice between my species or all others dying, I'd prefer all others" might be what he meant. (What almost anyone would say, in deeds if not necessarily words or that bluntly).
/Not my personal opinion.

[Starglider]

You seem to bring the issue down even to a personal level, i.e. "if it's a choice between me and all others dying, I'd prefer all others".

I'm unclear if he thinks survival has intrinsic overriding value (in which case, why would you ever do anything that doesn't directly increase your own lifespan or your number of direct descendants), or if he's just lost track of the fact that survival only has value because it's generally a prerequisite for accomplishing more meaningful things - a normally good assumption that fails in a few rare situations where those things would actually be accomplished better in the outcome where you (unfortunately) die.

Of course non-survival-centred ethics go against the grain, in that the 'natural' tendency of any iterative system is to favour patterns that reproduce and persist as much as possible. Frankly though if you think 'natural implies good' please go and join the greenpeace loonies. Maintaining a system of non-selfish ethics* is hard, but nothing worth doing is ever easy.

* Whining about communism etc at this point is another (common) red herring. Firstly rational utilitarians would not make such a dubious leap directly from basic values to politics without any consideration of practicality, and secondly valuing everyone's basic freedom and welfare doesn't preclude concepts such as entitlement to the fruits of personal labor.

[PainRack]

Here's an interesting question that might be raised in the press.

Why didn't the humans pull out the stops to preserve and protect lives, and used chemical weapons only after the better part of two Russian units were savaged?

It would be interesting to wonder how politicians handle any potential backlash from a media campaign like this, especially when victories become more and more common and overwhelming as Hell armies dry up.

Would it be indirect censorship, in which media companies are persuaded to not editorise news in this manner? Direct censorship? A press campaign of their own celebrating human victories? A it was neccessary angle?

[Stuart]

Why didn't the humans pull out the stops to preserve and protect lives, and used chemical weapons only after the better part of two Russian units were savaged?

For the same reason that the B-52 Arclight was held back until the right moment; the idea was to pack as many possible victims into the kill zone. The harpies are a difficult target, they're very agile and if they weren't pinned down (in this case around the defenses) the effectiveness of gas would be quite limited. If the enemy army was dispersed, likewise for the B-52 strike. The stalled attack piled a large part of the baldrick army into an excellent target for teh ultra-destructive bombing. Note that chemical weapons (contrary to myth) aren't actually very effective in a killing sense. What they mostly do is severely degrade the enemy defenses by forcing them to use the countermeasures (suits, masks etc) rather than degarde by means of casualties. It's our old friend virtual attrition again. In this engagement, the intention is to inflict mass casualties as quickly as possible - remember human forces are horribly outnumbered (almost 50 to one) so the situation has to be manipulated so that weapons are used to maximum effects. remember also, human weapons run out of ammunition, Baldrick ones, mostly, do not.

Would it be indirect censorship, in which media companies are persuaded to not editorise news in this manner? Direct censorship? A press campaign of their own celebrating human victories? A it was neccessary angle?

That's a question that's worrying armies today. Lot of discussion about it in military halls. The problem is that the news media, in America at least, do not pay much attention to persuasion not to publish sensitive data, in fact they take delight in doing so. If you've got a good answer, please let the Pentagon hear it, they'd love to have one.

[Stuart]

Preserving humanity at any cost to other sentiences is silly. I think I've raised similar issues previously as well. In fact, I'd prefer to see humanity go extinct and be replaced by something (assuming it becomes tech. possible) that fixes and improves all the 'God given' crap. I do wonder if you realize that such a stance makes you an ethically legitimate target for preemptive extermination. Perhaps you should reconsider?

You do realize that your argument is a perfect justification for genocide don't you? And that any minority that tries tor esist genocide is in the wrong and deserves to be annihilated. Following your argument, any majority has an absolute right to annihilate any minority. So you stand in favor of the slaughter of jews by the nazis, the genocide in Rwanda, of the massacre of slavs, Romani et al by the nazis and all the other cases where a majority has decided to rid itself of an unwanted minority. Where are you going to end that insanity? Do dark haired people have an absolute right to annihilate fair-haired people and you condemn any blonde who tries to resist? How about people with brown eyes? Blue-eyed people are a minority - eprhaps they should be got rid of, an of course co-operate in their own elimination.

You're not just incredibly stupid, you're sick You disgust me.

[Stuart]

Mr. Wong, what do you think about cases where it isn't a genocidal species? How about a species with equal or better 'ethical behavior' and for whatever reason we need to decide which species survives.

We obviously try to make it ourselves. The other species would do the same. This is a retarded scenario.

It could be a peaceful decision with one species simply dying off slowly and in comfort mind you.

No it couldn't. You're trying to concoct ridiculous scenarios in order to salvage your broken argument, which started because you thought you could bowl over your opposition by hitting them with sanctimonious bullshit.

Mr. Wong and Surlethe: The 'put humanity first' (i.e., at the expense of other sentients) stance is itself hostile. It's much more alarming if it ever gets out that humanity has 'exercised' that option in the past. Why would other species wait on humanity's judgement of their power when they can quite reasonably adopt a first strike policy without smearing their own ethical standing.

Idiotic bullshit. This is like saying that any creature with a self-defense instinct should automatically be assumed to be hostile and exterminated. In effect, you are saying that the self-preservation instinct itself is evil. And yet, without that instinct, no species would survive. Your lunatic view of ethics reflects poorly on you, not anyone else.

Way to go Mike! Nova andromeda is producing pathetic garbage in an effort to justify a sick and disgusting mental aberration.

[gtg947h]

Why didn't the humans pull out the stops to preserve and protect lives, and used chemical weapons only after the better part of two Russian units were savaged?

It might have been necessary to wait like that so that the targets would get bunched together--the Russians were buying time, so to speak.

Edit: Stuart beat me to it...

[Bayonet]

Any entities seriously standing in the way of survival would be exterminated.

Seriously?

How about the people who sacrificed their lives in a war to save more lives - do they have a broken ethics system, or is your system a little off?

You seem to bring the issue down even to a personal level, i.e. "if it's a choice between me and all others dying, I'd prefer all others".

Many humans whom the social consensus considers moral men, died to choose the life of others.

I did say "my team." If I wasn't clear enough on that, I apologise. Team is a bit subjective, but it is heirichal. If it's you vs. me, I'll try to make me prevail. Your family vs. my family, then my family. Above that, would be my country and I suppose my race (human). I did take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so I'm not unfamiliar with the concept of sacrifice. I was speaking about a national or planetary level, as the situation in Armageddon lays out. Again, if I was unclear, I apologise.

In any event, my preferences wouldn't mean much, nor would yours. As a matter of practicality Any entities seriously standing in the way of our survival would be exterminated. If you and I didn't see to that, others would. The entities seriously standing in the way of our survival would be classified as enemies and dealt with accordingly.

[Starglider]

Sorry, I may be the one holding things up. I've reserved a couple of hours to finnish the next chapter dealing with Detroit this evening (sadly I write fiction very slowly).

I did say "my team." If I wasn't clear enough on that, I apologise. Team is a bit subjective, but it is heirichal. If it's you vs. me, I'll try to make me prevail. Your family vs. my family, then my family. Above that, would be my country and I suppose my race (human).

In other words, your ethics are subjective, inconsistent and non-utilitarian. Of course, that's true for essentially all humans; we almost always go by what 'feels right', which comes from some combination of instinct and conditioning. Codified rules usually have to be imposed by governments; a minority manage to internalise them but it's a simple action-based priority system at best. Very few people try to formalize ethics in a consistent manner, and the result is so unwieldy that it isn't practical to use on a day-to-day basis. Finally when you do get to really important ethical decisions where that kind of reasoning is applicable, more often than not questions of politics and practicality drown it out.

That said I would still be interested to hear what ethical system you would instill in a sentient creature (species, even) that you were creating from scratch. In this case there is no room for hand-waving, you must specify exactly how this ethical system is supposed to work, or evolution will fill in the gaps with fairly arbitrary results.

Actually this is almost on topic, in the sense that the demon and angel societies we see here seem to be to a large extent designed - in the later case probably to Yahweh's master plan. Do you think you could do better?

[Surlethe]

Ethics codes are like mathematics and theology: self-contained, axiomatic systems.

Like all axiomatic systems, they can be inconsistent, which is a fairly clear indication of failure. Inconsistent axiom sets can remain more or less stable in beings like humans, but they're usually unstable in fully transparent intelligent agents, and quickly self-modify into a stable configuration.

Naturally; inconsistency is a possibility when you're dealing with any sort of closed axiomatic system. Just like theology and maths.

I see no reason why I should accept your system of ethics

There isn't a truly objective justification for any ethical system. You can only really argue on outcomes (in the bizarre game-theory sense of 'acting like you have these ethics isn't actually the best way of achieving the desired outcomes for these ethics' - not really solving the problem) and appeals to the human sense of arbitariness.

Right - all you can say is that system A produces result X while system B produces result Y. As an example, a mish-mash of utilitarianism and fundamentalism will produce the (absurd) result that five petri dishes is worth more than a toddler. For most people, this points to the fact that the ethics system is broken, but you can't logically make the final leap and say that the system is inherently poor without appealing to human instincts.

The other options are of course bribing people to agree with you (unreliable), forcing people to agree with you (unreliable unless you use as-yet-unavailable brain alteration technology) and killing everyone who doesn't agree with you. I'd generally try and apply them in that order.

one that apparently embraces the extinction of humanity as a good thing (!)

As an extreme edge case for a situation that is just about impossible in real life, but unrealistic/extreme edge cases are one of the key tools for evaluating ethical systems.

True.

in favor of mine, which notes that ethics exists to serve humanity.

Dirty liberal, caring about 'humanity'. Why, you should only care about your country. Aren't you a patriot boy! Not that those northerners are much good either. In fact no real sense caring about non-locals. Course those no-good latino neighbours, why should you care about them? Lazy sods. No, only people in your church are really worth caring about. Though if you had to chose between them and your family, 'course your family wins. And let's face it, you'd leave them in a second if that hot secretary would actually agree to go out with you.

See where this is going? No system of ethics is objectively wrong (at least, consistent ones) but most humans dislike arbitrariness, and points between 'me' and 'all intelligences' (which a mild exception for 'my genes') are more arbitrary. You don't have to apply parsimony to ethical systems the way you do to scientific theories, but don't you think it's a good idea?

How is it a matter of parsimony? I'm not quite sure I understand.

[Junghalli]

I think population numbers would be more of a minor factor (compensated for by future potential population) and the species with greatest potential should be allowed to survive.

And how do you judge which species has the "greatest potential"? Greatest potential for what, exactly? Surviving as long as possible? Spreading itself across as much of the universe as possible? Fostering the rise and survival of other intelligences? Breeding like rabbits?

This idea has the same fundamental problem as eugenics. Everybody and his uncle will have a different idea of what makes somebody valuable, complete with half-assed argument to support it. In practice most of them are likely to come down to "the most valuable people are the ones who conform best to my own personal subjective idea of what a good person is".

Personally I tend to go with assuming that all sapient beings have the same intrinsic value. If it came down to a choice between ourselves and an alien race I'd probably go with either species self-preservation (our own) or the species that had the higher population level, depending on the circumstances.

[Darth Ruinus]

If it came down to a choice between ourselves and an alien race I'd probably go with either species self-preservation (our own) or the species that had the higher population level, depending on the circumstances.

This is what I dont get. WHy would anyone EVER chose to have their own race die out, just because the other ones have more numbers?

[Junghalli]

The way I see it, if I have a choice of six billion people dying or, say, sixty billion people dying, having six billion people die will usually be the the lesser of two evils.

It's situational of course, but I don't see why the life of one person should be worth more than the lives of ten simply because that one happens to be more genetically similar to me.

[Col. Crackpot]

If it came down to a choice between ourselves and an alien race I'd probably go with either species self-preservation (our own) or the species that had the higher population level, depending on the circumstances.

This is what I dont get. WHy would anyone EVER chose to have their own race die out, just because the other ones have more numbers?

Personally, I'm selfish and couldn't give a fuck about the moral or ethical implications of killing some one that threatened my life. Or for that matter a species that threatened the survival of my own. But at least you know where you stand.

[Junghalli]

Well, if an alien species was directly trying to wipe us out I wouldn't have a problem with doing whatever had to be done to defend ourselves, comparative headcounts be damned (though I would prefer for us to defeat them without resorting to genocide if possible). They gave up their right to survival when they tried to take away ours. I see nothing wrong with a healthy species survival imperative; species that don't try to survive won't. I was thinking more along the lines of one of those "an ROB comes along as asks you to chose between having him wipe out humanity or race X" scenarios.

Like I said, it's situational.

[Darth Ruinus]

I was thinking more along the lines of one of those "an ROB comes along as asks you to chose between having him wipe out humanity or race X" scenarios.

And you chose the alien race just because there are more of them? I am having trouble wrapping my mind around that. Seriously, I can think of no reason you would ever chose another species except your own.

This is like saying, "WHo lives, your wife and kid, or that other family with 8 kids?"

You would chose the other family? WTF?