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Individual memories are not core integral parts of your brain, seeing as how they fall out of their own accord all the time. If you really want to see a society loving with people's brains, Babylon 5 has people having their minds erased and sentenced to community service for the rest of their lives instead of capital punishment. Squizzle posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwx5uB0pyhQ I always disliked how they claim the enterprise is so impossibly huge and stuffed with people that you never see. You never really see anything that would need that many people or make use of all that space. There's never more than 10 people on an away mission, not too many people fiddling with equipment on the bridge, no thousands of projects in engineering, the supposedly massive crew is more just a symbolic for the risk and danger that the ship is in, as if the onscreen cast isn't enough to make people care.
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Mar 19, 2020 16:14
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If you had hundreds of people on these away missions it'd be a lot less exciting when one of your one hundred and fifty two redshirts dies!
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Mar 19, 2020 16:17
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SlothfulCobra posted:Individual memories are not core integral parts of your brain, seeing as how they fall out of their own accord all the time. So if someone arbitrarily erases, say, your memory of your mother’s face - that’s aight because it’s not a load-bearing memory?
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Mar 19, 2020 16:35
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Mar 19, 2020 16:54
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Finger Prince posted:Semantic arguments aside, Ferrinus' stance on spying and the mintakens assumed views in general betrays a significant projection of 21st century American paranoia re: surveillance. Spying is bad, to you. You assume, therefore, that it would be bad to the mintakens, but that is an assumption based on no evidence, only your own biases. You seem to hold an absolute value system of right and wrong based entirely on your own internal biases and the biases of your identified peer group. Spying, surveillance, study, voyeurism, whatever you call the act the Federation was involved in, you say it is wrong. So it must be. But the Federation doesn't believe it is wrong. The mintakens we meet do not appear to believe it is wrong. When two parties are in agreement that an act is not in violation of their own individual ethics, you, a third party, are free to tell anyone who'll listen that you don't agree with them, but you don't get to say they are wrong. And you certainly don't get to interfere in their arrangement in an attempt to change it to suit your own ideas. And because it turns out people like you actually do try to do that all the time, that made a rule to try to stop it and called it the prime directive. No, no. Spying is bad to reignofevil, so it's really weird that he's willing to turn around and excuse someone's spying in basically the same breath so long as it's done to helpless indigenes for supposedly scientific purposes. My own stance on the matter is just that knowing you're being spied on, or can be spied on, with absolutely no recourse against it, will affect people's feelings and behaviors. You can't actually unring that bell - the Mintakans know, now, that the skies are not their own and they no longer have any expectation of privacy.
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Mar 19, 2020 17:20
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:I wrote that Picard tried to delete the faith from a dude’s brain, because the dude had experienced ‘miraculous’ events that might convince him of the existence of a higher power. No. That is not what objectively happens. I suggest you actually go watch the episode. Edit: And i'm not going to explain it to you because i'm curious as to exactly which part of the dialogue you're going to selectively edit or quote to support your theory instead of just going "oh hey that was wrong nm".
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Mar 19, 2020 17:44
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You're presupposing that they had some sense of secrecy for their overall society, when generally things that happen outside in a society of people living closely together are already public knowledge, and it's doubtful that they'd even expect potential viewers up in the sky to be able to see them in the places that they already thought were in private. It's unclear what their normal expectations would be about groups of strangers that don't come from the skies, but Star Trek has always been very shallow about the existence of life across a planet instead of in a very small area around the initial landing area. SuperMechagodzilla posted:So if someone arbitrarily erases, say, your memory of your mother’s face - that’s aight because it’s not a load-bearing memory? Is the memory of some guy you only met once and who plans to leave you and never come back the equivalent of your mother's face? If it was your mother erasing the memory of her face from you, would that change things? Although probably more important to your assertions is the question, "Is a religion that is based on an objectively false premise just as valid as 'real' religions that are based on more ambiguous or unverifiable premises?" You're really stuck on the plight of the Mintakans with your weirdly nebulous stance of "How dare these cultures not be subordinated and forcibly inducted into the Federation, but also how dare the Federation interact with these cultures in any way."
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Mar 19, 2020 17:49
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SlothfulCobra posted:You're presupposing that they had some sense of secrecy for their overall society, when generally things that happen outside in a society of people living closely together are already public knowledge, and it's doubtful that they'd even expect potential viewers up in the sky to be able to see them in the places that they already thought were in private. You betray yourself with your own language - "the places that they already thought were in private." There are no longer any such places!
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Mar 19, 2020 17:56
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Past tense does not imply that the status did not continue into the present.
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Mar 19, 2020 18:26
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SlothfulCobra posted:Eh, if you put it in those terms, you witness the universal genocide of potential timelines every day. But that's not really "Genocide" because it never actually existed, just the potential of it. When they erase a timeline in a time travel episode it actually no-poo poo exists complete with real fully sentient people and everything. Like when O'Brian from 5 hours in the future changed the timeline he murdered all the self-aware people beyond counting from the timeline where DS9 was destroyed.
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Mar 19, 2020 18:28
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I would be really pissed if I found out an alien research team were observing my personal life for research, and even more so if they tried to gently caress with my brain when I caught them at it. Intrusive spying and gross invasions of personal autonomy as a result of that intrusive spying don't suddenly become okay because it's the ~Federation~ who's performing it, because they had the best of intentions, honest!
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Mar 19, 2020 18:55
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SlothfulCobra posted:Is the memory of some guy you only met once and who plans to leave you and never come back the equivalent of your mother's face? By continually shifting your rhetorical focus, you can simultaneously argue that the memory is totally banal and unimportant - while also powerful and life-changing to such a degree that it must be eliminated. What you’re casually skipping over with all this is that the person in question has no choice in the matter. Also, no, it is not okay for anyone to erase someone’s memories non-consensually. (Even consensual memory-erasure would be a whole can of worms.) quote:You're really stuck on the plight of the Mintakans with your weirdly nebulous stance of "How dare these cultures not be subordinated and forcibly inducted into the Federation, but also how dare the Federation interact with these cultures in any way." With this, it’s clear that you’re losing track of the conversation. My stance has always been that Federation people should totally interact with the people - by granting them citizenship, giving them healthcare and votes, etc. This would require that the Federation change its policies so that they aren’t moronic. Because, under the current laws, the Mintakans are getting espionage and brainwashing procedures instead of votes. So the ‘nebulous’ concept is: how can the Federation do things that aren’t extremely stupid and pointlessly harmful? SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Mar 19, 2020 |
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Mar 19, 2020 19:09
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SlothfulCobra posted:Past tense does not imply that the status did not continue into the present. And now I think you can understand why he and I have been having such difficulty coming to an agreement on some very basic terms in the english language!
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Mar 19, 2020 19:20
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Also, no, it is not okay for anyone to erase someone’s memories non-consensually. (Even consensual memory-erasure would be a whole can of worms.) They did Worf’s brother dirty by non-consensually brain wiping him too (DS9, S4e15). Dude lived the rest of his days like Douglas Quaid, except without a Klingon Sharon Stone.
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Mar 19, 2020 19:32
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The Mintakan issue has been fairly well-exhausted at this point, with the arguments in favour of brainwashing getting increasingly desperate and incoherent. Grammatical nitpicking is basically an admission of failure. Let’s move on to a hypothetical scenario: Say a group of scientists on a “prewarp” planet (in Federation space) are right on the cusp of achieving warp. Like, the research is all done and they are only months away from full implementation. But then, at the last minute, the repressive planetary government seizes the warp research and eliminates all evidence of it, on the basis that it will be too confusing and scary for the public to handle. In this situation, would it be right for Picard to intervene?
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Mar 19, 2020 19:38
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Lol, you mean you actually watched the show and realized you had the entire order of events wrong and don't want to mention it.
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Mar 19, 2020 19:40
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Ferrinus posted:No, no. Spying is bad to reignofevil, so it's really weird that he's willing to turn around and excuse someone's spying in basically the same breath so long as it's done to helpless indigenes for supposedly scientific purposes. They may not care. Their society may not place any value on privacy. Shame is a human condition, the mintakens or any other alien species may not even have the capacity for it. That's why I'm saying you're projecting. Even among humans, many people are under constant surveillance and don't even think twice about it. You might be the one person in thousands who turns off location services on your phone, most people choose the convenience of having it on.
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Mar 19, 2020 19:48
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Finger Prince posted:They may not care. Their society may not place any value on privacy. Shame is a human condition, the mintakens or any other alien species may not even have the capacity for it. That's why I'm saying you're projecting. Even among humans, many people are under constant surveillance and don't even think twice about it. You might be the one person in thousands who turns off location services on your phone, most people choose the convenience of having it on. This is just the racist fantasy underlying like all of TNG - well, it's okay for us not to afford others rights, because while they may superficially resemble us they're not really like us and simply don't need or want the things we take for granted.
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Mar 19, 2020 19:52
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Ferrinus posted:This is just the racist fantasy underlying like all of TNG - well, it's okay for us not to afford others rights, because while they may superficially resemble us they're not really like us and simply don't need or want the things we take for granted. Speaking of projection.... How racist you gotta be to think that everyone has to think the same way you do and have the same values. And if they don't, they're just poor dumb primitive people who would totally accept your culture if only they could have it explained to them.
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Mar 19, 2020 20:11
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CainFortea posted:Speaking of projection.... I mean, you’re basically describing the Federation attitude in regards to pre-warp civilizations to a T here...
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Mar 19, 2020 20:28
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The central conceit of Star Trek's humanoid rubber forehead species is that they are all fundamentally human in psychology and are basically just glorified different cultures, which is why the Romanulans are the Roman-Communists, the Klingons are Viking-Samurai, the Bajorans are Jewish-Palestinians, the Cardassians are British Colonial Nazis and so on, they're all just worse versions of humans who hasn't cracked the code to the perfect society by doing smug 90s liberalism really, really hard. The crew of the Enterprise certainly agree with this premise because their actions only make sense if they assume a human-like response to their encounter, you can't claim their reaction to having their privacy and bodily autonomy would be unknowable because they're an alien culture and also they would inevitably worship Picard without further interferance because Psychology
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Mar 19, 2020 20:32
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ruddiger posted:I mean, you’re basically describing the Federation attitude in regards to pre-warp civilizations to a T here... ...how? I mean, this whole conversation is about the prime directive which pretty clearly says that other cultures can be different and don't have the same values. So that somehow means that they think that everyone thinks the same and has the same values?
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Mar 19, 2020 21:02
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multijoe posted:The central conceit of Star Trek's humanoid rubber forehead species is that they are all fundamentally human in psychology and are basically just glorified different cultures, which is why the Romanulans are the Roman-Communists, the Klingons are Viking-Samurai, the Bajorans are Jewish-Palestinians, the Cardassians are British Colonial Nazis and so on, they're all just worse versions of humans who hasn't cracked the code to the perfect society by doing smug 90s liberalism really, really hard. The Federation is just the American-Canadians and so of course they think they're the best but have just enough of an inferiority complex to second guess it sometimes. Not too strongly though.
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Mar 19, 2020 21:24
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CainFortea posted:Speaking of projection.... That is the Federation line. Every civilization that's lower on the tech tree is inferior to yours but also progressing naturally towards your own, which represents the societal pinnacle, and so must be left alone until it grows up. Their people don't matter and don't enjoy the same rights and privileges as yours do because they're simply not on your level yet, and must bootstrap themselves up to deserving health care and education.
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Mar 19, 2020 22:07
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The Mintakan issue has been fairly well-exhausted at this point, with the arguments in favour of brainwashing getting increasingly desperate and incoherent. Grammatical nitpicking is basically an admission of failure. It's still internal politics, so no. The federation does not take upon itself the initiative to decide how other societies should live. Generally in the real world it's considered a bad thing for foreign governments to invade and overthrow the governments of other states and turn them into protectorates. There is a whole thing where internal conflict past some critical point often winds up inviting the international community to choose to back one side or another, but that's part of the ongoing, often more pragmatic than philosophical or benevelolent, relationships in the international community that the Prime Directive prevents from forming. As for whether the federation is willing to do that with postwarp nations, it seems like their willingness is directly inverse to the US's current military adventurousness. They take great pains during the Gulf War to not directly aid the federation-friendly and legitimate Chancellor Gowron in the Klingon civil war, but then in the late 90s they're all gung-ho about helping Legate Damar run an insurgency against the rest of Dominion-led Cardassia. There's even a federation plot to install one of their agents into the Romulan government. I think there's also an implication that the federal government of the federation doesn't weigh in much on the internal politics of federation worlds, which is why the Vulcans have so many weird secrets. It's ambiguous whether the federation government is even supported by popular democracy, we never see anybody vote so far as I know.
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Mar 19, 2020 22:16
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CainFortea posted:Lol, you mean you actually watched the show and realized you had the entire order of events wrong and don't want to mention it. If I have not gotten the order of events wrong. Everything I've written is easily verifiable. If I had made a mistake, it would still not make brainwashing ok. You have resorted to trying to prove I am a 'bad person', because you have given up on arguing that brainwashing is ok. SlothfulCobra posted:It's still internal politics, so no. The federation does not take upon itself the initiative to decide how other societies should live. PLOT TWIST: My hypothetical scenario is actually the plot of the TNG episode "First Contact" (not to be confused with the movie). PLOT TWIST 2: Picard interferes and ends up backing the repressive government, preventing warp travel from being realized for decades (perhaps indefinitely). SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Mar 19, 2020 |
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Mar 19, 2020 22:19
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Ferrinus posted:That is the Federation line. Every civilization that's lower on the tech tree is inferior to yours but also progressing naturally towards your own, which represents the societal pinnacle, and so must be left alone until it grows up. Their people don't matter and don't enjoy the same rights and privileges as yours do because they're simply not on your level yet, and must bootstrap themselves up to deserving health care and education. Should just change your name to InFocus or something. Nothing you've said is true or supported in the show itself. I mean, the federation is constantly sending medical supplies to non-federation planets, or helping to solve plagues.
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Mar 19, 2020 22:22
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:If I have not gotten the order of events wrong. Everything I've written is easily verifiable. No brainwashing happens in the show either. And yes, you have very clearly put things in a different order specifically to try to shore up your dumb argument. And it shows very clearly. You say it can be easily verifiable, then please do so. Again, I want to see what edits you make.
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Mar 19, 2020 22:24
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CainFortea posted:Should just change your name to InFocus or something. Where was this support for the maquis?
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Mar 19, 2020 22:38
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CainFortea posted:You say it can be easily verifiable, then please do so. Again, I want to see what edits you make. Six minutes into the episode, Liko sees a sparkling cave on the side of a cliff. He looks inside and watches as an alien person disintegrates two other aliens. Another alien walks over and terrifies him, and he is simultaneously electrocuted. At ten minutes, Liko wakes up in a glowing chamber, looks Picard directly in the face, with awe, and cries "Picard!" Those are the specific 'magical' experiences that they attempt to delete from Liko's mind. They don't want him to believe in magic, gods, etc. Therefore, the protagonists are deleting the faith from his mind. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Mar 19, 2020 |
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Mar 19, 2020 22:56
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CainFortea posted:Should just change your name to InFocus or something. They are not doing that for pre-warp civilizations. They leave those to die.
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Mar 19, 2020 23:44
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Six minutes into the episode, Liko sees a sparkling cave on the side of a cliff. He looks inside and watches as an alien person disintegrates two other aliens. Another alien walks over and terrifies him, and he is simultaneously electrocuted. At ten minutes, Liko wakes up in a glowing chamber, looks Picard directly in the face, with awe, and cries "Picard!" lol. Okay, found it. Here's what actually happens. Liko sees the duckblind, gets zapped, and hurt. Crusher teleports him to sickbay, where he wakes up and says "Picard!" Thus, they know that he was awake and saw them. So they attempt to remove the memories from his mind. Turns out, he remembers anyway and he decides that the old spiritualism must actually be true and that causes his religious awakening. So unless you are prepared to claim that Picard can see through time, no, they never even attempted to delete faith from his mind.
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Mar 20, 2020 00:01
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ruddiger posted:Where was this support for the maquis? It was on the planets that they offered to locate them to elsewhere in the federation.
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Mar 20, 2020 00:04
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Ferrinus posted:No, no. Spying is bad to reignofevil, so it's really weird that he's willing to turn around and excuse someone's spying in basically the same breath so long as it's done to helpless indigenes for supposedly scientific purposes. It would be rational for their society to henceforth discard the notion of privacy altogether. After all, why shouldn't the church, the state, or your neighbors refrain from watching you when you know that you're subject to constant surveillance anyhow? It would make no sense to even develop a notion of privacy in a world in which you know you're being watched by people you cannot see. What this reveals is that, contrary to Picard's perspective, the discovery of this fact by the Mintakans is a good thing. And indeed, this is why they're so grateful to Picard- they now know the truth about their situation and have been given considerable (if deeply flawed) assistance in forming a useful and accurate interpretation of that information. What's wrong is that he gives them an excuse for just leaving them with that and nothing more- he only does the bare minimum to help them, and what he does is compromised by his actual priority, which is maintaining the power imbalance between their people and the Federation. The problem is the Prime Directive.
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Mar 20, 2020 00:36
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CainFortea posted:It was on the planets that they offered to locate them to elsewhere in the federation. So you admit that federation aid comes loaded with geopolitical stipulations?
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Mar 20, 2020 00:46
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CainFortea posted:So they attempt to remove the memories from his mind. Well this explains things a bit. Because you are reliant on exposition to understand the story, you are asserting that the character doesn’t believe anything until he says “I believe this!”. That exposition is identified as the exact moment where the character ‘decides that spiritualism is true’. Because that’s how people work: they don’t believe things until they announce that they’ve decided to believe things. In actuality, the character believes Picard is a god much earlier: when he finds himself healed, Picard gazes down at him with a halo, and he looks up at Picard with awe. Picard finds the awe disturbing, and instructs Doctor Crusher to erase the man’s memory.
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Mar 20, 2020 00:47
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:
Yes, he believes Picard is a god earlier. However, Picard has no way of knowing this. Again, unless you are claiming that Picard can see through time, or can read minds. So when you claim that Picard knew this you are wrong. ruddiger posted:So you admit that federation aid comes loaded with geopolitical stipulations? You do realize that the Maquis were all federation citizens right?
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Mar 20, 2020 00:50
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CainFortea posted:However, Picard has no way of knowing this. Again, unless you are claiming that Picard can see through time, or can read minds. People are able to ‘predict’ things based on their understanding of cause and effect. Troi is also not the only character who has empathy as a superpower. Picard has this same power. He has what is called ‘theory of mind’.
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Mar 20, 2020 01:18
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Picard orders the memory wipe prior to Liko even gaining conscience. Tell me more about your mastery of cause and effect? Edit: So I guess you are going back to Picard being able to see through time?
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Mar 20, 2020 01:44
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Also, I don't recall Picard ever having empathic senses. Even temporarily.
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Mar 20, 2020 01:49
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