This question might have already been addressed (I don't know because I am new to the forum) but I was wondering what people thought about the end of The Purge. It is by far the weirdest episode of an already exceptionaly weird show, but what did the end mean? My take on it is two-fold. My first reaction is that it is a play on the idea of the homunculus. This of course leads to the notion that our conciousness is infinitely layered and thus our actions can never fully be explained (or even that consiousness is an illusion). This seems to fit with Aeon's philosophy, as well as Bambara's. Of course this means that the consciences that Trevor is implanting in people are completely fake. He is simply implanting people with his notions of what is right. Again this fits. However, the final scene is a real conundrum. Aeon must have a Custodian in her because identical sound and animation are used in the scene where she pulls the lever to kill Trevor and in the final shots of the custodian. This leads me to believe that the Custodian has a mind of its own and is not simply one of Trevor's tools for social control. The conscience is itelf governed by some even deeper principles. Again, this fits with the idea of the homunculus. But at the end, is the Custodian trying to escape, thereby exerting its free will, or is it simply following some predetermined program, as evidenced by the mindless repetitiveness of its actions? Aeon thought she was exerting her free will by pulling the lever, but it turns out that she was being controlled. What do people think?

P.S. Hey woudn't a video game based on The Purge be great. The first scene of The Purge is great game problem solving material. Hell, I would play an RPG length game that consisted of nothing but Aeon tracking Bambara through room after room of crazy puzzles strewn with Chung's cynical wit.

-- logo (vosepherus@aol.com), September 21, 2001

Answers

Welcome logo, This is how I see the whole lever thing. Aeon isnt trying to kill trevor but shes trying to do what her purpose has been since the episode began, kill Bambara. The reason she hesitates is because she'd have to kill Trevor as well.If you remember from the end of the chase Aeon didnt pull the lever that would've prevented Bambara from killing the man in the trailer. This time she does pull the lever. She makes a decision that she's never made before, kill trevor. If trevor had to die in order to kill Bambara she was prepared to let it happen, but she hesitated and had to think about it. Trevor may have implanted her with a false conscience. If he was willing to change her ("no one changes me") she was willing to kill him. Trevor knew that Aeon may not have had the guts to kill him if it meant Finishing off Bambara, so he programmed the custodian to pull the lever. At some point he may have decided that Aeon WAS capable to pulling the lever and decided not to implant her. ---Emma

-- Emma Frost (ice_cold_emma_frost@yahoo.com), September 21, 2001.

I don't know Emma... I like your observation about her initial confrontation with Bambara, but I don't know if I agree with the rest of what you are saying. After all, why would Trevor purposefully implant Aeon with a device that would make her try to kill him? Also, I don't think she was debating whether or not to sacrifice Trevor for the sake of killing Bambara. At that point hadn't Bambara already been disposed of by the audience? I think she was just debating whether or not to kill Trevor for the sake of ridding the world of Custodians. Kind of an ends justifying means question. I'm sure her previous confrontation with Bambara was significant in that she suddenly found herself in a very similar situation. What is ironic is that this time she chooses sacrice when the Custodians are supposed to prevent willful acts of violence. Apparently she was more humane the first time when she lacked Trevor's moral guardian. In a way this little drama could be seen as an allegory for politics and religion in our world. It's as if predetermined notions of morality all have an agenda which simply gives rise to more violence, or at least a different type of violence when they come into contact with differing moralities. Only the amoral are truly moral and consciountious toward their fellow man. "Who's side are you on....I take no sides."

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), September 22, 2001.

Or... Maybe Trevor engineered the whole final confrontation to prove the custodian concept. What if, according to the morality implanted in the custodian, killing Bambara was more important than keeping Trevor alive? Trevor suspected Aeon herself wouldn't sacrifice him, but would do so under the influence of a custodian. To test the theory, he implanted Aeon to determine if the custodian would override her. This would also explain why Trevor (seemingly) replaced himself with that funky custodian/automaton - he wouldn't dare risk his lily-white skin, since Aeon would now be capable of killing him. Thoughts?

-- Charlie Princeton (bebop432@hotmail.com), September 26, 2001.

I think Aeon is definetely implanted. I like your interpretation CP. It definetly fits with the facts. One thing I love about this show is how a lot of the episodes come full circle. It often gives Trevor and Aeon a kind of frightening omniscience (which always used to mess with my head and make me wish I could go back and watch the episode again, before I got them on VHS). It's also worth noting that after Aeon shall we say, passes the test, the audience elliminates Bambara by pulling a lever and the same sound and animation are used again. I guess Trevor's morality is the stronger in the end since he is able to manipulate everyone so easily.

Aeon says to Trevor "your psychotic...You no longer have a common conscience with your fellow man." and Trevor responds "I never did."

This is a very cynical view though as it suggests that morality is simply a matter of the strongest will and the who has the power to back it up.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), September 26, 2001.

Let's look at the beginning of the episode. You can pretty much get a feel for the morals involved. In the beginning of this episode:

1. There's a man who needs the toilet paper - Aeon helps by throwing him the toilet paper.

2. The second room, the boy is tied up and needs help. Aeon thinks for a moment and uses the coin in the bank to open the door and does not help the boy.

3. The cripple's dog is thrown out of the train. Aeon gives a sad look and uses the cripple's crutches to lift the electric gate. And does not help the cripple.

4. Bambara connects a timed explosive to trevor's door - Aeon looks at it -does or does not understand when it is going to explode- and continues chasing Bambara. (Not helping Trevor)

5. A moral dilemma (more higher-order process) -Take out Bambara and an innocent fellow or let Bambara walk free. Bambara does neither - in fact, he has the upper hand.

We can even rank the outcomes, Bambara is in the better position:

a. Bambara walks - B:++ AE:-- b. Bambara walks, Aeon shoots him - B:+- AE:++ c. Bambara drops the weight - B:++ AE:-- d. Aeon drops the weight and kills both guys - B:+- AE:-- e. Aeon walks - B:++ AE:--

Bambara (c) drops the weight and kills the innocent guy in the trailer and Aeon Flux's view kind of freezes and her background turns gray. Remember that?

Then, of course, Treveor gives his voice over.

In the beginning of the episode we know that Aeon is not implanted with the custodian -she doesn't even know what they are yet- so this is an excellent control variable to see how she behaves regularly. She has a freeform kind of conscience that is... well... all kinds of things -mostly reason/time based. She must get Bambara, and though innocent people are being victimized by Bambara during the chase, Aeon helps them by being the seeker, the redeemer of sorts seeking vengeance -going after the source, and in some way all of us reason this way. Notice that the moral stakes get much higher as we go along. In scinario 1, it's only toilet paper - Aeon helps out. In scinario 2, it's a tied boy hanging over an open train track. scinario 3 is a crippled person who is on the ground. scinario 4 is a BOMB that may destroy the whole train, depending on the time setting. And in scinario 5, she has the choice of taking Bambara's life along with an innocent person's.

By the end of the episode, Aeon has to make the same choice as she did in scinaro 5, except it's a little more personal now. The custodian has little control over outside influences, though it seems that everyone in the audience is implanted with a custodian of some sort. Notice that, earlier, when Aeon removed Bambara's custodian, chaos kind of broke loose - the food bank ritual was disturbed - the train's timebomb was set off - these are all symbols for the influence the custodian has. But when Bambara had the custodian, the affect on his behavior was immediate, and the change was noticable - Bambara bought balloons, and gave his ARM to a boy he didn't even know. The affect the custodian has on Aeon -if she DOES have the custodian- is less dramatic. And this could be because of Aeon's higher-order processes. But realize that, in the end, weather it is one's conscience or not, the choice is either yes or no. A very black or white kind of choice and this is symbolized with the lever pulling. We can never know if Aeon really has a custodian. The evidence points us in all kinds of directions - especially with the anti-custodian belly button seal that people in the episode seem to be sporting. But what we see could very well be a world of people acting in accordance of their own brainwashed wills. Maybe they don't have custodians. Maybe Aeon doesn't either. Maybe what they have is a lack of options =)

-cyn

-- cynical (x@x.com), October 26, 2001.

I don't think that Aeon has a custodian. If you'll look at all of the victims of the custodian, the affects are noticable -and what some might actually consider insane. When hostess Judy is implanted with a custodian, she starts making up nursery rhymes. Bambara donates his arm to a boy he's never met. When Aeon considers delivering the custodian to the all-women's counter-insurgency group, it is Bambara's custodian. Do custodians act differently in people with different moral standing?

The custodian is hardly explained in detail. All we know for certain is that it gives people a conscience -and that is vague in itself. Trevor's men keep custodians suspended in a green fluid when they're not in bodys. I'd like to believe that a custodian cannot exist without a will to guide. Think about it, it's called a custodian and custodians clean up -in this case- evil thoughts. The custodian is a symbiotic device. Originally, we think it to be mechanical, yet when Aeon removes Bambara's custodian it seems to display intention -that is, when Aeon picks up the scapel to kill Bambara, the custodian is activated and starts to wiggle around; it tries to implant itself into Aeon's body. And the custodian makes a whispering kind of noise when it wiggles around, a kind of whispering that one would assume a conscience to do.

By the custodian's structure, we can assume that they also have control over various motor skills and such, but the largest part of the whole custodian is the head. When the head of the all-women's counter-insurgency group rips off the head of a custodian and replaces it with a rocket popsicle... (that is what it is, right?) The custodian still inserts itself, but ends up destroying the person. This can mean any number of things. It could be a test into the group -perhaps the custodian with the popsicle WASN'T supposed to kill the girl. Or -hey- the show is pretty surreal, it could just be pure entertainment. When the head of the group talks to Aeon about the group's cause, we see a different picture. Hostess Judy was on the trail of Bambara because they knew Bambara would be implanted. And there's this guy crawling around on the floor serving food (acting like a dog), suggesting that a custodian can actually be reprogramed and bent to serve someone else's will.

I doubt Aeon Flux is implanted with a custodian. I think everyone else (except for Bambara and Aeon) is actually implanted with custodians. That makes the show interesting, right? Even Trevor himself is a custodian! What kind of test would it be if everyone had a custodian?

Anyways, sorry for breaking this up into two messages -I had to go to my English composition class. I was reading your responses and I think you misunderstood the original incident with Bambara and the weights. You see, it's like this:

/---------------\ | | Aeon's weight \---------------/

/------\ \------/ Bambara's weight

0 Trailer """"""""""""""""

Bambara moves his weight-dropping crane over the trailer. Aeon moves her weight to show that she can drop her larger-mass weight and kill Bambara (and take out the trailer too.) This is why Aeon didn't drop her weight -this is why it is a moral dilemma. She will face this again later.

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), October 26, 2001.

Custodians do act differently in people because the noticable affects are a sythesis of will and conience. Just because Aeon doesn't act like a nut doesn't mean that she is not implanted. The fact that she changes her moral decision from the beginning to the end implies that some change has occurred within her. It is possibly natural, but it is just as possibly due to a custodian. What is your interpretation as for why Trevor self-destructs and why the custodian seems to be trying to escape at the end? (Either it is trying to escape or it is practicing pulling the lever). I understand the moral dilemmas involved in the episode, but why does the concience, the Custodian, seem to possess a will of its own? Can a will or concience exist without the other. Is anybody truly completely moral or ammoral? In fact, can the Custodians even be called a concience since they merely command. There is no choice involved with someone who has been implanted; there is no dialogue between their conflicting inner forces and hence no struggle. (Remember that scene from A Clockwork Orange where Alex is forced to demonstrate his moral turnaround and the audience raises the same question about morality and struggle). And of course the ultimate question this episode asks is does morality even matter? Aeon's "choice" to pull would have resulted in death. Those who are implanted become crazy, and the counter-insurgency group is made up of dominatrixes. On a side note, in the Trevor/Aeon dramatalurgical diad (thank you Simpsons) who is the will and who is the concience?

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), October 27, 2001.

Well, Cyn you sure are a great thinker. What great points you make, especially about the stakes being raised. I always felt Custodian represents organized religion. Religions through the ages have sought to 'implant' people with notions of what is right and wrong. A current example of religious 'Custodian' decision making is the Muslim Terrorists believing killing the infidel is the ultimate right act. They never stop and think for themselves but 'carry on' according to that religions 'Custodial' conscience. Don't get me wrong, I believe in God, but what does God really think? The human element makes that interpretation in organized religion and likewise the Custodian's actions had to have been 'designed' by a human. I presume Trevor is the designer of the Custodian's and so wouldn't the Custodian's choice of right and wrong actually reflect Trevor's personal beliefs? Trevor becomes the 'Pope' in this one. The all woman counter-insurgency group is interesting because as far as I have ever seen religions around the world inform us that men are the God ordained 'head' of women and in this episode we see the insurrection is led by women. Aeon herself does not act as a woman should according to most male dominated religions, (her choice of clothes for example). However the lead dominatrix to me seems to have become arrogant herself, as evidenced by the slave serving treats on a plate balanced on her head. She has succeeded in debasing another human being for the sake of elevating herself and so the insurrection is shown to be falsely based in 'righteousness'. At least this is my thought. Aeon goes on without this group doing her own thing because she never did implant Bambara's Custodian in herself and return to this new 'Pope-wannabe'. I still haven't figured out the end, but maybe Aeon is only 'about' to be implanted. The real Trevor not being there indicates he doesn't trust Aeon enough to 'implant' her himself, making me think of a man not wanting to get involved with a woman because he feels she is too dangerous to 'implant'. Now I ask you, does she look too dangerous to 'implant'?

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), October 27, 2001.

Ok, I rewatched the episode. =) Aeon wasn't SUPPOSIDLY implanted with Bambara's custodian. She steps on the thing's neck and separates the head from the rest of its nerve-like body. It dies. I thought she was knocked unconscious before she was able to kill it - my bad!

About the custodian at the end...

Yeah, it could be trying to escape. Maybe it can detect thoughts somehow, and that is why it is trying to escape - maybe it wants to "get into" Aeon since she doesn't have custodian. And here we see, again, that the custodian has a sense of purpose. Or maybe Aeon is implanted and the custodian is just trying to escape. Maybe Aeon's custodian malfunctioned durring the lever test and needs to be replaced. But what the custodian is doing at the ending sequence can be argued endlessly. Who the $%^& knows!!??

In the beginning, when Trevor's goons are preparing to implant Bambara, the custodian suspended in the fluid just floats there before it is removed -it doesn't try to bust out like in the ending sequence. Is this a different type of custodian? Couldn't they just remove the custodian and have the custodian walk up there and implant himself, basically? We've seen them do that.

About what Barb said is true, the custodian's program has flaws because it is programmed by Trevor. And what is good and bad in this world is completely subjective. The custodian might trip up when faced with more complicated events.

For example, during the war, Jews in large numbers were escaping Nazis through the sewers of Germany. The story goes -so I'm told- that a mother's child wouldn't stop crying, and soldiers were being drawn to the sound. The mother had to sacrifice her child in order to save the group.

So in the above example, what is right? If you had a custodian, it would be what Trevor thinks is right. This is illustrated in the end when the custodian jumps out of Trevor -implying that Trevor is ALL conscience. But the inside of the CUSTODIAN's head is just a doll ("A dirty carbuncle festering in the corner!" -Bambara.) A tiny little doll that dances around for a short while under the spotlight and shuts down -like a wind-up toy. Is that what conscience is? Something we wind up and release when it is time?

What is right in the situation of droping a weight to kill an enemy and a stranger? What about an enemy and another person you consider an enemy? What about an enemy and a person you consider a lover? What about an enemy and a leader of the people? An enemy and a puppet?

Clearly, the answer to each question above drives the physical response. If we knew everything, we could act in the best possible way. If we had a relationship with the very people involved in a situation we would do the right thing. We would do what is right for the well-being of the group, as well as the well-being of ourselves - no matter how painful and difficult that would be. Assuming, of course, that we have the right "guiding force" and "good intentions." But people cannot know everything, which is why the world is what it is. And it's true, even if someone does know everything, the response can still be biased or sloped to a certain degree because men are not perfect, nor the events they get into. You must also take into account society and the roll each person plays in it -who is judging and who is judged. If a prostitute is murdered, we view the prostitute as a victim, rather than a sinner -at least in my oppinion, anyway. In The Purge, society has been also replaced with custodian-driven responses -everybody pulls the lever to eliminate Bambara, no one chooses to let him live- and this does constitute as "order." Yet the very people who have NO custodian (us, the viewer, Bambara, and possibly Flux) are viewed as the insane ones - the trouble-makers, the abnormal people. The "angry mob" is a good example of this because the majority is not always correct -just outraged. I don't know; it's impossible to pinpoint conscience because it is always changing, evolving with society and the individual. A reasonable response that is totally right and just and appropriate for a situation could still very well be viewed as vile, disgusting, and unrighteous to any given group of people. I'm sure that we have two kinds of consciences -a group and an individual conscience. One that is bent to preserve the individual, and the other evolved to preserve society. I like how the custodian, too, is comprized of two components -the custodian who guides and the person/people behind the conscience it dictates.

*yawn* Okay, lemme get my ladder and climb down my soapbox here... ;)

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), October 28, 2001.

Oh, and to answer Barb's question, no, I don't think that Aeon is too dangerous to implant. Moreover, I don't think she needs to be. I think custodians are for killers and revolutionists. Aeon could very well be a revolutionist, but she has an excellent conception of identity -and she does not need to identify with the all-womens group. Throughout the episode we see her make faces and we can see by her actions that they are thought out, you can see that there is conflict within her; she is not just going with the herd. She is a model Monican. I don't think the custodian was made for people like Aeon. Aeon had Trevor at the throat, but she didn't kill him. She was annoyed by Trevor, but the cause was kind of absent; unreasonable almost -it wouldn't do anything. I don't know. Why would you want to give someone a custodian if they already have a conscience? I mean, besides the control thing. I think Aeon did the right thing during the conscience gameshow. I think the gameshow was just intended to tease Aeon -Bambara destroyed the wall and came in to disturb the show. HE created the dilemma to test Aeon. I think what she did seems logical -she's not really violent in this episode, just reacting to the environment. Kicking ass when she has too. =)

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), October 28, 2001.

And Trevor. Trevor had no Custodian. Remember the scene where he was cleaning his navel.

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), October 28, 2001.

I would agree that most people tend to do the "right" thing. The problem is that even given absolute information we would all probably end up doing very different things because we all have different motivations. Some people are motivated by group interest, some by self interest, and a lot of the times these interests conflict. But no one ever really does the wrong thing for the purpose of doing the wrong thing. No matter how evil someone is, they never think of themselves as evil. That is up for the rest of society to decide. What Trevor has done, as evidenced by the panel of judges on the game show, is create a society where moral ambiguity does not exist. The judges may seem overly enthusaistoc about doing away with Bambara, and as you say everyone without a Custodian does seem crazy, but by definition they ARE crazy because they act so differently from the rest of society. In the absence of any higher definition morality it is up to society to determine what is right and wrong and how to behave. Those who are implanted may seem incredibly dumb, lambs if you will, but they are the bulk of society and hence they are right. The fact that Trevor has "artificially" brought this state of things about is irrelevant. The problem with thinking that Aeon does not need to be implanted is that not implanting her would run counter to Trevor's whole morality project. Yes he begins with the criminals and freaks, but you can't honestly believe he would stop there. As each successively different, and thus wrong member of society is reprogrammed it just makes the other less different ones seem like that much more of a threat. It's your basic slippery slope. Trevor is a despotic control freak. Remember "Ether Drift Theory" where he says, "who tracked the mud into my nice new petri dish?" Well all of Bregna is Trevor's petri dish. He is fundamentally a scientist and for this particular experiment he could have chosen any number of moral codes. What validates his experiments is their success. In so far as Aeon is an obstruction to that success she must be elliminated. If she is not implanted already, she will be.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), October 29, 2001.

Believe it or not the general accepted definition of 'crazy' is that it interferes with your functioning. Anyone implanted functions very well, the problem is they have been robbed of their free will, which is God given, although if you don't believe in God you can say it is just a 'given'. Point being: no matter how happy; how well adjusted; how nicely the society runs, you have been duped and played for a sucker. Your free will is your identity and your right. Why not just make a society of only 'Trevor's'? Or are you going to hand over the right to decide what is right and wrong to another human being?

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), October 29, 2001.

Crazy is whatever society decides is crazy. For instance, rather recently homosexuality used to be officially considered as a mental disorder by the American Psychology Association because it "interfered" with "normal" sexual functioning. If you research the etymology of the word hysteria you will find that the ancient greeks believed that a nonpregnant woman was "crazy." And as a woman yourself, I am sure you have had men make snide comments to you about it being "that time of the month" when you are acting especially strong willed. My point is that "proper functioning" and thus "crazy" are cultural determinants usually created to maintain the status quo. In my first example it was to promote "good christian values", in the second and to a lesser extent third examples it was to keep woman subordinate to men. As for the issue of free will I will not go so far as to say that free will is an illusion, but we are definitely confined by societal norms, and yes, morality. Everyday of our lives is spent handing over our right to decide what is right and wrong. Or to be more accurate we never completely had that right to begin with. First our parents tell us how to think and object when we think differently. Then we are indoctrinated into some religious organization and told that despite the hundreds of thousands of religions out there, ours is the one true religion. Seriously, how many people actually choose a religion for themselves. Then there is the whole issue of peer pressure, consumer society, government laws, and wealth. And by wealth I mean the luxury of being able to consider morality in you actions rather than just having to consider survival. And let's not even get into the issue of raging teen hormones and repressed sexuality. By the end of the day, we have very little say in what is right or wrong and even less say in which option we choose. Soceity by its very nature involves giving up some basic rights, like the right to do whatever we want, because if I have abolute rights, they must by becessity infringe on somebody elses right to life. To a certain extent you can call that being played by a sucker, however it is more popularly referred to as the social contract. Yes, the Bregnan's are "robbed of their free will," but it is a law of nature that free will and society must conflict and so free will impaires their functioning as members of society......as Trevor sees it. Of course this all hinges on your definition of the perfect society. If you want order you would probably side with Trevor. Personally, I would hesitate to even call that a society. It is a beautifully ordered machine, but it is not a society. But if I object to Trevor's schemes it is not on moral grounds, but on personal grounds that are no more and no less valid than his own.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), October 29, 2001.

I've gotta go with Barb on this one. Some people believe that insanity is actually a sane reaction to an insane world. =) I'd like to believe this. Yeah, yeah -we've all seen that episode of the twilight zone. Society dictates what beauty is, what good morals are, and what counts for good manners. What good is a society made up of a single person's conscience? People who contribute to society help define the trials of civilization. A society sharing a single man's conscience isn't a society at all -it's very well the extention of an individual's life, a mirror, a man's private hell. What is the purpose of the custodian? To control the mob? To turn the apathetic more apathetic? To make them think they have a choice? To turn murders into friendly people? Please. Give me a break. Trevor being a master of experiments? He has no control variable; he has nothing to compare the world to after he has changed it -except Monica. But in his biased mind, who says when enough is enough? The bottom line: what is he doing? By changing everyone else's will, is he in fact dodging his own conscience? Making his direction the "right" direction -re-wiring the mind of society than earning their fellowship? We still have the not-so-righteous revolutionaries -the group that wants to decrypt and re-purpose the custodians, not purge the society.

And I'll stick to my guns and say that Aeon is not, and never will be implanted with a custodian. Believe it or not, Aeon is not Trevor's enemy in this episode. She is against the major threat -Bambara- and does not side with the revolutionaries. Trevor said it himself - "my children -Judy, Bambara- it was for them I created the custodian, an artificial conscience of fire for those who have none." Is her behavior in the "red"? Furthermore, what good would moral control be over Aeon?

I think Aeon's conscience actually parallels with Trevor's. This episode is made up of the control force and the recipient thereof. Personally, I believe that Aeon was kept custodian-less and Trevor made this world for her. I think Trevor re-programmed society and re- worked the murderers; he has done this all for a single person. If not for her, there would be nobody to witness it -his brilliance. And without a (worthy, intelligent) witness, what's the point? The whole issue of control is subjective, and who we control and who we want controlling us is sometimes within/out of our control.

Here's my evidence:

Example 1. (from A Last Time for Everything) Trevor clones Aeon for control, yet by Aeon's will she LETs Trevor clone her -so who is controling whom? By the very end of the episode, who won?

Example 2. (from Thanatophobia) Aeon is bombing the 7981 buildings, yet Trevor does nothing to CONTROL these bombings -if anything, Trevor is the one being controlled- "They won't let me shut down construction -they never will." Who is this "they" business? The old boy network? So is Trevor in control because he LET'S Aeon do the bombing? No. This is called saving face.

Example 3. (from End Sinister) The same kind of business of creating a private world. It ended up that Trevor was able to trick Flux into killing a significant portion of the human species. Sure, she punches him, but by the end, Aeon seems almost PLEASED by it (snuggling with Trevor in the cryogenic chamber).

Trevor NEEDs Aeon. She is his nemesis. They define each other; without the other, each has no cause.

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), October 29, 2001.

...which is why Aeon didn't strangle Trevor in The Purge. She can't kill him, by her own conscience -not the damn custodian. =)

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), October 29, 2001.

What's wrong with Trevor trying to reprogram society? Every single person in the world has some gripe about something they would like to change. Most people don't have the balls to do anything about it. Most try and fail. Those who succeed are the ones who lead us. And there is a constant supply of new people and organizations making a bid for power. The only thing that makes the US special is that the founding fathers were smart enough to create a complicated system of checks and balances. It usually prevents any one person from getting too powerful, but it also makes further change that much more difficult.

I can't imagine Trevor created a new world just for Aeon, especially since she is usually trying to destroy his creations. At best you might say they both use his projects as an excuse to be with one another. However, I do like your point about how he needs a witness to his glory. I remember how in "Eutopia or Deuteropia" he comments about how everyone is touched by his brilliance except he himself. I guess he is not so much of an egomaniac that he can eschew other people completely.

For the record though, I don't think there is any higher purpose to society than to exist and perpetuate itself. Or if there is some other purpose it is self defined. "What good is a society made up of a single person's conscience" you ask; well it's perfectly good for the person at the top. And most of human history reflects this belief. Hell, Christianity is founded on it. All of human suffering is supposedly just part of some grand cosmic experiment the purpose of which we can't even fathom, but for which we will still be judged. When God does it is alright, but when Trevor does it we cry out in indignation. At least people seem happy in Trevor's world, just look at the people during the food ritual, or his daughters, or Judy.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), October 29, 2001.

As for the issue of control it is impossible to tell who is controlling in this series. In Last Time yes Aeon succeeds in hurting Trevor, but she felt the need to KILL herself because he had sucha powerful effect on her. In "Thanatophobia" the only person really not in control is Sybill who is too emotionally weak to think for herself. The fact that Trevor has to deal with a commitee is just a natural consequence of politics not an indication of his impotence. Hell, even the Roman emperors had to bow to the senate every now and then when it was politically expedient. And as for "End Sinister," just because things worked out a certain way and Aeon was able to make the most of a bad situation does not mean she planned the whole thing out. I don't care how much she loves Trevor, she would not kill the entire human race just to be with him, especially when she originally tried to stop him from doing just that. They seem to have a kind of symbiotic mutualism happening where they get bored when they are either in control or under control and they can only be happy when they are jockeying for position.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), October 29, 2001.

All right Logo, =) at this point I’m just arguing for the sake of arguing! That bit you said about God and Trevor trying to overthrow God – well, actually you didn’t use those words… you said something to the extent of Trevor doing what Christianity has been doing for ages- had me kinda miffed. =) Yeah, I’m a Christian so I’m biased. I understand your point though. “The Lord is my Shepard, he leadeth me to greener pastures,” says I. And Trevor goes, “I am the source of your salvation; HAND ME THE CUSTODIAN!” Um, yeah. See where I’m going with this?

God, well, I don’t know the thoughts of God. I don’t know why he allows evil to take place. It’s a mystery to me why he lifts his protection from the human race –especially with recent events. Lots of people condemn God, they reason, “what kind of God would allow this to happen?” More so, some people don’t even believe he exists. But from my standpoint, we cannot begin to understand the thoughts of God because his time-span is infinite, and we are only given a glimpse of this infinity. Trevor seizing control of people’s wills? Yes, I agree, it’s a fantastic scheme. But let’s not compare apples to oranges here. With the Christian faith, one chooses the belief system and chooses to follow the “rules” – I guess you can call them. In The Purge, there is a lack of choice –there is no choice. And even less payoff: Trevor isn’t offering enlightenment, spirituality, a heaven after judgment. Even worse, Trevor is taking away what is very well God-given - our free will.

I have this golden retriever –my pet- and he’s always digging up the backyard and escaping the fence. I’ve had to repair the fence a whole bunch of times and such and he still does the same thing. I’ve had to resort to keeping him on a leash until I can go back there and fix the fence yet another time. Yet, when I do so, he’ll just find another weakness in the fence and exploit it. My dog has no conscience. He’s just a dog – I don’t expect him to have one. He has no idea that what he is doing is wrong. I try to punish him, but it’s damn near impossible because he has no understanding. It’s his nature. And that’s why I try to change to accommodate this lack of consciousness. I’d like to think that this is the way God feels toward human beings – that we don’t realize that what we’re doing is wrong; we lack a certain friendliness with our fellow man. I pet my dog, I feed him, walk him –and in return, I am comforted by this animal. I watch him run around, carefree. Occasionally, he licks his privates and such –but this doesn’t disturb me – he doesn’t know any better, you know? And I’m sure that there are some people, right now, who are jacking off and such, and God is watching this and being in the same kind of ... understanding. That it is easy to punish, but pointless in some respects when it goes against the nature of the individual, of society.

And that’s why I think this episode is so cool. Everything is so complicated in this episode, yet only black-and-white answers are allowed. I like how Aeon says, “I know who I am, and what I’m still capable of.” To which Trevor responds, “Yes, you have a very black mind indeed.” =) In this episode, there are quasi-revolutionaries with bad intentions and a leader with good intentions who wants to provide a “conscience for those who have none.” We have differing points of view – ranging from Aeon, who is freeform independent to Bambara, who believes that “everyone deserves to suffer because everyone is to blame,” and from what has happened to him, we can understand why he is so outraged: He has given his arm! Is this the right/good thing to do? We see relatively normal people turn insane – kinda like giving regular people LSD and watch them go high and stuff. This really is an amazing episode. And in relation to society and the individual, in theory, this episode is right on –putting the viewer, us, in the hot seat.

And I’m sorry I took your responses personal, or if my responses were vindictive. This has to be the best thread in the world.

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), October 30, 2001.

Well, I thought about my analogy of Trevor to the Pope, and I have to say I'm recanting it. The position of Pope is given to a man who trys very much to be a real representive of God (don't check history to deeply though). Pious is the world I think. Also the people join themselves willingly to the Catholic Church and follow him with their own free will. The Custodian is more an artificial intelligence. I do think Trevor is genuinely trying to make a real effort to improve mankind, that is why he is not an evil man. But he isn't pious, look at his nude secretary, or his affairs with Aeon, practice of hiring thugs, on and on. His character is complex. He wants to improve the world of mankind but he prefers the cold, leave out the human scientific approach to accomplish these goals. He wants total control. The peoples free will stands in the way.

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), October 30, 2001.

If you want to know my thoughts on free will then just look up one or two posts. Moving on though, how is Trevor's seizing control of people's wills any different from the Roman Catholic Church seizing control of people's theology and reprogramming them with a new belief system. You have to realize that every new world order has to have a beginning. A beginning usually fraught with conflict and death. Early Christians were vilified and reviled by the Romans, but eventually they won out and Christian morals have become the dominant ones in the West. There is nothing inherently better about them. The Roman pantheon of gods was just as real to the Romans as the "one true God" is to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. As for the issue of choice, early Christians may have chosen to convert to Christianity, but that choice is clearly lacking today. It is not as if we are raised in a theological vacuum and when we turn 21 we make an informed and educated decision about which religion to follow. No. We are taught how to think and what to think from the moment we exit the womb. (Later experiences may conflict with these earlier teachings, but they are quite resilient and tenacious). We accept that fact precisely BECAUSE we are so indoctrinated. What we see in the Purge is that shift in world orders. Yes there is conlict now, but if and when Trevor succeeds, it would only take a generation to obliterate any memories of the past order and create a society that fully accepts and embraces Trevor's new world order. Such as society would be very different from ours, but it might work, and the people would be happy.

I like your analogy with your dog for a couple of reasons. You say your dog has no idea that what he is doing is wrong, but what makes it so wrong? He is an imprisoned animal seeking freedom. What is wrong about that? What makes it wrong (and I agree that in this context it is wrong) is that you, a being of infinite power and authority over him says that it wrong. In your society of two you have established certain rules and you expect them to be obeyed. You are a despot. But you are a good despot in that you understand his weeknesses and accommodate them. Trevor understands human weakness as well. Rather than punish bambara he "saves" him from himself. And what is more, any societal disorder becomes a personal failure for Trevor because he is society's conscience. He is the lawgiver. Maybe God does understand and accommodate human weakness, as well he should since he created it. What kind of hypocrite punishes others for his own failings? But even if we are forgiven in the end (and who knows) why put us through all this pain and suffering now if it won't matter?

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), October 30, 2001.

Who says a savior has to be pious? All that is required of a savior is that s/he change things for the better. And if a savior is really good, he will convince the people that what he is doing is better no matter what it is. Trevor may be a womanizing control freak who uses gestapo tactics to achieve his ends, but all that will be overlooked by history once those ends have been achieved.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), October 30, 2001.

YEAH! That guy with the dog is a despot; and furthermore it DOES bother him that his dog licks its own balls, DESPITE ALL claims to the contrary however repeated, vociferous or numinous they may BE.

Besides - you realize of course that were he but to release his hold of tyranny upon that leash, GOD would deign to return him utility of his eyes!!

But, NO! No - and yet this moment, for lack of any vision, that fool doth yet retain his jealous grip upon his own and only loyal benefactor, forever to approach - and unaware - the End of the Line for his own journey Cataclysmic; unaccountable, meaningless and FATAL.

-- dangerboy (artian@earthlink.net), October 30, 2001.

I’m getting lost in all this. Here’s where I stand:

Regarding Flux being implanted: I think Flux isn’t implanted. She was kept custodian-free so she could witness Trevor’s hyper-conscious society.

Regarding custodians: I think custodians behave like the body politic; the head can be severed and still function, but without the head the custodian behaves erratically and sometimes causes the eradication of the whole body. The custodian’s own will is their ‘purpose’ function, which may or may not override survival. The custodians cannot survive outside of a human host, or outside of a liquid-filled container for extended periods of time. The custodian also cannot exert influence if outside of the host body, but it can read thoughts outside of the body and must insert itself before it can change a person’s will. The custodian at the end of the episode is trying to break out, or is “locked” in the lever-throwing action; since I believe Aeon isn’t implanted, this motion is a disturbing coincidence, or perhaps Trevor modeled the custodian program after Aeon’s conscience (not likely). In any case, even if she is implanted with a custodian, we can’t tell if she is acting in accordance with a custodian because she isn’t acting any different than when she did in the beginning of this episode. True, she is making different choices now, but these are different circumstances.

Regarding the point of the project/experiment: Trevor created the custodian to control people bent on harming society. He wants to save people, feed them, guide them, and entertain them as one would a pet. As a sub-objective, he re-wires society to prove to Aeon that he is a genius/superior/”da man.” =)

Regarding the individual: The individual is the smallest unit of society (true?). The individual contributes to the societal conscience and is a member of sub-groups (families, communities, etc.). What one chooses as right or wrong is driven by the circumstances of the situation, the people involved, and the personal values of the individual –which are influenced by society. Other biases that come into play are the emotions between members, identification with certain groups, sub-groups, and the consequences that may affect the individual making the choice.

Regarding society: Society outlines the conditions regarding how a person should live their life. Deviations from this model are weeded out or re-programmed. Society defines the norm. The survival of a society depends on its cooperation with other members in the society, its ability to produce enough to sustain each member, and its ability to adapt/evolve when met with changes. Society has rules that govern the individual.

Regarding free will: Free will is never absolute. Our free will ends when it impedes another’s right to free will: If I kill someone, my free will ends because I have violated someone else’s right to live, and society carries out the punishment. Our ability to make a choice is carried out by our free will, yet free will is controlled by the ramifications of whatever “free-will” activity we engage in, weather those consequences are engineered by members of society or the society itself. In the same respect, we can say that the individual is kept in check this way, since it is the individual’s free will.

Regarding rulers and leaders: The entity in the highest power has control over right or wrong, above the wishes of any one person, and above society. If the entity is not in the highest of power, there will negotiations. If the leader represents the will of the people, he will be liked, if not, he may be overthrown by a group in society or a single person who stands for the will of the people. The winner gets to write history. If a group fails to overthrow the leader/government, that group is branded as rebels or conspirators. If the group succeeds, they will be labeled as heroes and saviors. These labels are also labeled differently among social clusters and among individual members.

The reason I’m organizing where I stand is because there were a lot of issues I didn’t comment on and I didn’t feel like reiterating the stuff people said that I agree with. I was going to organize for you, Logo, where you stand, but I didn’t want to put words in your mouth. Furthermore, where you stand could have changed since this posting. Just off the head, I’d like to hear where you stand in a format similar to this. It’d help because, first off, I don’t want to be an idiot and argue you on a stand you’re not even taking or a stand I’ve misunderstood. Secondly, I don’t want to waste time/space by arguing ideas we agree on.

And your last post said all kinds stuff in it –including a question on morality and human existence. I’m workin’ on it, just hold on!!

All the best,

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), October 31, 2001.

And wtf are you on Dangerboy??

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), October 31, 2001.

In response to Logo's earlier statement(s):

Hmmmmm. I don’t really understand what you’re saying. Yes, there are people controlling what Christianity is, the Bible has been translated so many times that the meaning is slowly being lost. Yes, the government leaks God into phrases like “In God we trust” and “God bless America.” Do people buy into it? You said that there may have been a choice before, but there isn’t a choice today? How is this so? You said, “We are taught how to think and what to think from the moment we exit the womb.” Are you mistaking “we are” with “I was”? There are many interpretations of God. Some people take certain phrases of the Bible literally and other phrases not-so literally. That is how we have come to have so many flavors of faith in God – many have broken off from the same basic belief, yet each one is different. And they choose a different name, like Anglican, Southern Baptist, Mormon, Lutheran, Pentecostal, etcetera, etcetera ad infinitum. And if you don’t like any of those, you can choose something else –that is the bottom line. Some people choose not to believe in God, and that’s fine. Some people choose to believe in Allah. This is fine also.

You stated that society’s memories would be obliterated after a generation and people would embrace Trevor’s new world order. How did you come to that conclusion? Are you saying that future generations would be easier to implant with a custodian, or that, since everyone would be implanted by then, everyone would forget Trevor’s subtraction of free will? I agree with at least one of those. But the problem with this is the same as problems that have been repeated throughout human history with any civilization. One, there is always a force that can never be controlled – in this case, I’ll give Trevor all of Bregna, but Monica is still not controlled. Two, most empires crumble because of the lack of control a leader can exert and keep sustained. Just the sheer volume of people is a puzzle to control. Back in the days where custodians didn’t exist, kings had nobles and such to maintain rule over their empire. Control was expensive for everyone: the farmers who had to pay the tax, the noble who had to deliver the tax, and the king who had to watch over every portion of the empire –weather it was working in accordance with his “wishes.” Here we don’t have this problem. We have technical problems like “what if I change my mind, and I have to update every single custodian?” Third, probably the more important issue: legacy. Most empires only last as long as a strong ruler can be sustained. If Trevor were to die in a plane crash, get struck by lightning, commit suicide, or die of natural causes, what would happen to society? Trevor has… two daughters? Should they be implanted and continue guiding society? Would they need to? No. By this time, society would be already self-sustaining. All thanks to Trevor. Oh wait, by then nobody would remember that he was responsible for all the implanting anyway. Moreover, what’s the point –the benefit of having this clockwork ant farm? The order and happiness the members experience? Sure. That’s as good a reason as any. At this point is anyone really watching?

And about me being a despot over my doggie, yes I am. I’ve considered putting an electric gate just to contain him. Is he worth the trouble? Probably not. Neither is implanting a whole society with custodians. I also agree with you that I have unlimited control over my pooch, and I say what is right and wrong, never mind the fact that he belongs to an inferior species. And yes, Trevor takes into consideration the needs of the people. Hell, I’d give my dog a custodian if he’d stop chewing on the fence. Maybe that’s all Trevor wants to do, with absolute completeness - prevent society from harming itself.

And God accommodating the human weakness is definitely an interesting idea. For one thing, most flavors of faith depict a vengeful God - a God that rules with frustration and anger. This is pointed out several places in the Bible, from the great flood, to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra. Yet a kind, sympathetic God more rightly depicts the idea of “mercy.” As for cosmic purpose, the point of being here if we will be automatically forgiven if we ask for forgiveness can be made more clear with the supposition that our purpose in life is to be good and treat others equally. The dangers and corruptors in the world are trials in which we are tested. What are we being tested for? Our goodness, our faith, our generosity, our loyalty, etc. I think in the end it matters –as oppose to the song “In the End” by Linkin Park, which is a kickass song, btw.

All the best,

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), October 31, 2001.

Here's my take.

Custodian: Same, except I think maybe the Custodians have some king of free will of their own.

Trevor's experiment: Same, except I don't think he did it to prove to Aeon that he is a genius. Neither of them seem like the kind of people that have to prove anything to anyone.

The individual: Same

Society: Same, except I would add the caveat that certain individuals are also able to define societal norms. Trevor is just such an individual.

Free Will: I would qualify your (and my own previous) definition of free will by stating that the degree to which we can exercise our free will is directly proportional to the amount of power we possess. Yes we are all raised within the constraints of society, but as we accumulate power we are able to distance ourselves further from the societal ramifications of our actions if we choose to do so. Minorities are punished more harshly than majorities, the rich get off more easily than the poor, Trevor as the grand architect of his society can do whatever he wants, and God, the wielder of absolute power, answers to no one. Absolute power equals moral authority which equals the ability to exercise one's free will absolutely. Also, Trevor has not taken away people's free will, he has just reprogrammed it to be in accordance with his wishes. It's like that famous Henry Ford quoate. "My customers can have whatever color car they want...as long as it's black."

Rulers and Leaders: Yes, if the ruler represents the will of the people he will be liked...for a time. However, if a leader changes the will of the people he will be liked forever. They are still free to like whoever they want, but it just so happens that they all like him.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), October 31, 2001.

What I meant by "we are taught how to think and what to think from the moment we exit the womb" was that society immediately begins to influence our thoughts and perceptions. This is not to say that we are being brainwashed, rather it is an unavoidable element of human development. No one can be raised in a vacuum. What usually ends up happening though is that people simply accept what they are taught without really questioning it. If you are raised in a devout Catholic family you are taught to go to church, not eat meat on certain days, not wear a condom when you have sex, etc..and you do it without questioning why. Sure we have a choice in what religion to follow, but rarely do people switch religions because by the time they are mentally deveoped enough to realize they can, the whole ethos of their religion has already become too integrated into their sense of self. I think religious devotion is very much founded on a solid base of routine. Yes we are always free to choose, but like with the citizens of Bregna, by that time we simply do not want anything different.

Assuming Trevor's plan is taken to its logical conclusion, i.e. total custodial insemination, he will have achieved total ideological purity within his nation of Bregna. Sure other nations, like Monica, would have competing ideologies, but within Bregna there would be peace because there would be no ideological conflict. The reason real world history is so fraught with conflict is that no leader, no matter how powerful or ruthless, has ever managed to attain complete ideological purity. It is just not possible. Sure, people have tried. Hitler created an ideology of hate and then tried to purify the country through extermination. Stalin would build walls around his people in an attempt to isolate them, and failing that he would simply liquidate his political opponents. Even Christianity was not exempt from this pattern. The crusades were an extremely bloody affair whose increase in zenophobic violence came roughly at the same time as the Peace of God and Truce of God movements which were an attempt to diminish violence within Christian society and create a more unified christian front. None of these tactics were successful however, because it is so difficult to alter people's internal motivations. Trevor has done that using science rather than politics, theology, or brute force (although he of course needs brute force to back himself up).

As for the issue of legacy and Trevor wanting to reprogram the Custodians, neither are important. Reprogramming the Custodians could be no more difficult than downloading a software patch over a cable modem. And once the project is complete it really wouldn't matter who is at the helm because the society would run itself. A leader in such a society would be relegated to the status of a mere maintanance man. Someone to apply a little grease when the wheels start to wear thin. A very rich and powerful maintanance man though.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), October 31, 2001.

Old Ideas Revisited

Regarding free will: You say that the amount of free will one can exercise is directly proportional to the amount of power one possesses? This is not completely false, yet just because something applies to a particular instance does not give us the right to apply it to ALL instances. For example, how would you define the ultimate act of free will? Committing suicide? The amount of power (I assume you mean in social standing) that such an act requires isn’t much –in fact, it doesn’t even matter how important that particular man is, the free-will act is determined by the subject’s own decision, with little regard for society. What you meant was power in social standing and political influence, correct? Not necessarily. You see, one can act by one’s own free will – in a beneficial way toward society - and still may not have significant social standing. One can be a nobody and still be exercising free will of the individual, even when one’s actions impact the lives of other members of society. Do these members who are affected surrender their free will to this person? No. They don’t have to because each has a free will of their own. Perhaps what you meant was that our power to exercise free will (when it impedes other’s rights) is directly proportional to the amount of power we possess, though not even this is true in some cases. If some angry mothers wish to have bad language on television censored, they can act, believe it or not, without a leading voice – they can act without ONE single member to represent the group, yet still impact the lives of many. Does this constitute as impeding other’s rights? You bet it does; I have the right to hear any kind of language I want to hear on television. Yet does the power a single person has in a group guarantee more privileges to impede on the rights of other’s? No, it doesn’t because that mother’s power is only activated when it is assimilated with the group’s belief. The influence and exercise of power belongs to the group and it is shared. Yet, in affect, the power is not returned to any single individual. There is no directly proportional relation to the power one has in society and the amount of free will one is allowed to exercise. Therefore, your implication that absolute power would bring forth absolute free will is also not valid (I shall prove this later in this posting). You went on to say that minorities are punished more than the majorities, yet paradoxically you say that the rich get off easier than the poor. In most societies, the majority has never been the rich. The majority has been the poor. The minority of the population is wealthy. If, by minority, you meant in fact ‘the’ minority, as in “the minorities in the United States” -the non- Caucasian races that exist in society, I still don’t see how this relates to who is granted more privileges and social power. Are you somehow asserting that just because a rich person has power, he can get off easy? This is not the case. Even the leader of a nation can be impeached if his actions are frowned upon by society –the combined wills of seemingly non-powerful people. Who decides how easy a rich person should get off? The government? The people? The leader of the people? What about the poor? If, by some freak occurrence, a poor person does get off easy, what does this mean? Does this particular poor person have a chance of scoring more political power? Not likely.

“Trevor as the grand architect of his society can do whatever he wants, and God, the wielder of absolute power, answers to no one. Absolute power equals moral authority which equals the ability to exercise one's free will absolutely.” –Logo

And then you said that Trevor has the power to do what he wants, likewise so can God. I doubt this is the case. With power, comes responsibility; there are no equivocations to this principle. Even more important, if one achieves power, no matter how utterly absolute, there comes a dilemma: anything one does will result in one of the following: loosing power, returning power back to society, sustaining a grasp that is equal to what it was the day before -but never beyond. I may go so far as to say that even God finds himself in this situation from time to time. Given that God has absolute power over the universe, why is it that a fraction of the world population still does not believe in God/a God/God(s). Isn’t this a funny occurrence? Even throughout the Bible, God is creating miracles and cleaning out society wholesale and sometimes destroying sinful cities –yes, who's choice is subjective because he is the almighty one– all for what? The general welfare of society? Or to simply prove to the cynics that he exists? Who is serving whom? Sure, you can argue that God is not omnipotent then, or that perhaps he does not have the power, or that he doesn't exist period. Yes, that is grounds for a good argument. True, some people believe God did not create man, but that Man created god. But this proves my point exactly. Is it by God’s free will that we are given a choice to believe in him or not? By cynics not believing in God, are we actually “fitting” into God’s plan? And by acting out this script does that make us even more under control? Furthermore, if the whole human race were to die, what would God be? If no human conscience is alive, will God still exist? Possibly. What would he be? Alone? Even more painful a reality is that he is not in control because there is no one to control. Here we see that leadership is still cooperation, and though it might be God who’s will is being carried out, it still requires individuals, society, civilization to carry out that power, that will. This argument can also be transferred over to Trevor. And I will discuss this transference later, but first:

“Rulers and Leaders: Yes, if the ruler represents the will of the people he will be liked...for a time. However, if a leader changes the will of the people he will be liked forever. They are still free to like whoever they want, but it just so happens that they all like him.” –Logo

Never mind the custodian for a moment. You say that if a leader changes the will of the people he will be liked forever? I don’t think so. If this is true, “forever” isn’t a very long time. There are examples all throughout history; take your pick. As historians continue to reflect on the past and as new evidence is uncovered, some may decide that Trevor is a malicious ruler after all. This is perhaps even more valid because it is in a different time, in a non- bias stance outside of the realm of Trevor’s control. This change of view comes from the fact that the will of the people changes -shift happens. Just because a ruler has changed the will of the people does not set the stage for eternal reverence. This too, as you said, lasts only “...for a time.” One cannot embody all of society’s views because at one point, a leader would be contradicting himself, no? And if it is the leader who is trying to embody the will of people, who is truly in control? Who is who’s puppet? Continuing in that vein, Machiavelli argued that a liked ruler is a very weak one. The will of society is constantly changing like all things in this dynamic world. What is beautiful one day can be ugly the next. Similarly, our whole system of logic is AT BEST an approximation of the truth. We can’t say that the only natural hair colors out there are black, brunette, blonde, white, gray, and red; you haven’t pooled the whole world –you only took a sample as representative of your population. Be careful, for it takes only one, I repeat, ONE new hair color to totally destroy that notion. Nobody has investigated every single hair shade. There might be an Eskimo that exists today with naturally pink hair that no one has seen; or perhaps one may evolve tomorrow. It’s not likely, but our beliefs will eventually have to change to accommodate new information, as new observations occur. Because Trevor is mortal, he too will have to bow down to change within society. But this is not the case; he controls their conscience. They are neither loving him too much, nor hating him too much. Yet he is not in control, even though he has/will have exerted physical, mental control. Is Trevor in control? He who does everything in his power to make the people like him, think like him, and ultimately obey his rules –allowing him to have unlimited free will? Who’s whims, needs, and desires have driven the leader’s actions –that leader who has been toiling endlessly to reprogram society so that they might attain his approval– I ask you. Yet Trevor has control, you claim, and that is the grounds for your next argument.

“[Trevor] will have achieved total ideological purity within his nation of Bregna. Sure other nations, like Monica, would have competing ideologies, but within Bregna there would be peace because there would be no ideological conflict. The reason real world history is so fraught with conflict is that no leader, no matter how powerful or ruthless, has ever managed to attain complete ideological purity. It is just not possible. Sure, people have tried. Hitler ... Stalin ... Christianity ... was not exempt from this pattern. None of these tactics were successful however, because it is so difficult to alter people's internal motivations. Trevor has done that using science rather than politics, theology, or brute force (although he of course needs brute force to back himself up).”

Trevor has not done anything of that, yet. When does he achieve this? When he says so? Has he ensured order and peace among the people? At what price? As I said earlier, society is dynamic, and there will eventually be a social change, or more realistically, a kind of technological advanced for the good of society that will require a defiance of “peace” or “conscience.” Eventually, this control over conscience will impede any kind of material, economic, technological progress. At times, isn’t it disruption that drives creative force? A gigantic re-ordering of society is in demand if there are no more criminals to contain, police to catch them, or judges to hold trials. There would be no disagreements; no political talk shows, nobody checking the system to encourage change –for better or worse. The leader would have to create jobs, activities and hobbies just to take up the time that would have been otherwise spent watching the news or engaging in activities that went against the leader’s conscience. But at this point the forward progress of society has already been stunted, and the members of society who were capable of higher-order decisions have been de-ranked -The members of this society have been reduced to nothing more than domestic animals. The people no longer share any social or moral code, for they possess the SAME moral code. A society based on a single man’s conscience is merely a society of one. I ask you, does a farmer “rule” over his cabbages? If he does all the right things, can’t the crop still yield bad veggies? Is there a component of society that cannot be controlled? Does a king of the dead truly rule a society? Does he rule? Does he command the people? OR do the people comply because they think exactly the same way. You said it yourself, regarding rulers and leaders, you said: ”[the people] are still free to like whoever they want, but it just so happens that they all like him.” The difference between command and compliance is this. Command implies control by the leader, whereas comply reflects a certain degree of choice by the members of society. The members of Trevor’s supposed society complies with Trevor, albeit easily because they are all thinking the same way. Trevor’s power STILL, even in this most extreme case, revolves around the compliance of the people. Does his power not still ultimately rest in the people, should they ever break free? In terms of power, there is very little to gain on his part. He has even more privileges but he has sacrificed the whole of society. This power isn’t even rightfully Trevor’s -he has merely usurped this power from the people.

The philosophy behind a leader, a sovereign is that an individual, a community, a society, a nation, a civilization of human beings revolves around the idea that there needs to be a kind of government/administration that watches over and guides the direction of that body of people (note King Solomon). If the job of the rulers is to combine, persuade, and guide the ideas of the people into a useable force, can such a mind-robbed society, in this case with only one mind, truly be considered something that is ruled?? As a more dramatic example, do you yourself rule your body? Do you give yourself orders and then decide to comply with those orders? Or do you simply just do it because, in fact, you are the same ‘one’?

And your argument that “the end justifies the means” doesn’t hold. Suppose I were to ensure everyone on earth complete freedom. Suppose I were to ensure freedom for all and peace on earth. Ok, let me do that. *kills the whole human race* There. Complete freedom on earth and peace for all, which is ME. Is the outcome of my actions justified by the force I took to do so, not to mention all the human rights that I stepped over? Moreover, my outcome was deceptive, and by the end I have distorted the whole context of peace on earth and freedom for all. The end doesn’t always justify the means. Sometimes the end is just fucked up altogether to which future actions cannot redeem. The failure of this experiment with custodians is not weather it can be done or not, or weather total order and peace among the people is worth society unconsciously surrendering its freedom, but in the end, what has it achieved for the whole society? If Trevor wanted to save the people, has he done more harm than good? And what good is that to Trevor if he is just a “maintenance man, someone to apply a little grease when the wheels start to wear thin,” as you said? How much better is this from when they started?

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), November 01, 2001.

It occurred to me today, finally, that we've all been suckered into a fool's errand, trying to ascertain TG's ultimate designs for the Breens, and for the human social project by assumed extension. Why, that -- that devious, opaque, Freudian, intrepid Loki with a NIOSH mask & a clipbard - and no wonder Timothy Leary at the end of it even decided rather than have to account to those as such who only want to heeeeelp you - but all the while an oblique and ulterior apparatus' machinations are at play herein, this design, this control-run, whose ultimate analysis and readout will by such design and of necessity exclude all our hopes of achieving a satisfaction of the knowing, the intuity or the sane; we are taut in the long eclipse of the Object,

SON OF A BITCH!!

TG's interest, all of the foregoing were by way of all interminable abstrusion to say: The Good Doctor has been RUNNING THESE EXPERIMENTS, NOT upon the population of his proper and dutiful Breen "subjects" (!) but rather all for the sake of the various and sundry technical apparati; implementals, the Custodians; the Copies...THESE are and have been his own and only true and cherished inventions, adaptives, apparati....

The Breens were ultimately reduced and rendered wholesale a control-culture for Trevor's exclusive purposes to sustain, if or to extent so subsequent as determined, to evaluate the viability of a neoculturoid environs of pure, naked invention!

It wasn't for the Breens...the Breens were for - IT!!

-- dangerboy (artian@earthlink.net), November 02, 2001.

Christ what a post! I'm going to have to take this one in pieces.

I just meant power, plain and simple. Power can take any form, but it is usually recognizes by its influence over others. A man who chooses to kill himself has very little power in so far as his display of force is self directed and ONLY affects himself. However, if his death somehow sets in motion a chain of events that effect a great number of other people, then I would say he has a lot of power. Of course he could never enjoy the result of such a display, so the oint is worth delving on for the purposes of this discussion. Theoretically, since anyone can just kill anyone else they do technically possess a great deal of power, however, most of us are severely limited by the knowledge that the penalty for such an action would be quite severe. It is only the rich and "powerfull" who can exert this most grotesque display of force over another person and not have to pay the consequences. Hence they are more able to exercise their free will. Of course you are probably objecting to the idea that free will consists solely of the ability to do harm to others, but that is largely the way it is defined in our society. Our laws tell us what we can't do. Even God's laws are proscribed in the manner of "though shalt not." They are restrictions on behavior, restrictions on our power, and thus restriction on our free will. Sure we have certain human rights and freedoms: freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, right to life, right to a fair trial, etc. But those rights and freedoms are revoked if they impinge on other's rights. Examples: we are not free to assemble just anywhere, we can not shout fire in a crowded theater, our right to life ends where another's begins, and a fair trial is an interesting ideal, but it is not possible and has never been achieved. Of course the greatest irony is that these basic rights and freedoms, limited though they may be, are only made possible by the threat of governement force, i.e. military/police. Basically, we have these rights only because they can so easily and summarily be revoked. However, the entity resonsible for granting these freedoms (government, king, God) is more free because it has a "monopoly on the legitimate means of coercion" (to quote Max Weber). "The lord giveth, and the lord taketh away" and always does the lord remain in control.

Now for the other issues you bring up: minorities vs. majorities, rich vs. poor, will of the group vs. will of the individual, and accountability of leaders. Where minorities and majorities are concerned I was mainly referring to racial minorities because humans mostly arrange themselves along racial lines. That being said, you can not deny that in this country, and in virtuallly every other country you or I have ever heard of, the ethnic majority usually holds most of the power. Now, there are exceptions. For instance money can often hold more influence that race, but it is just as often overlooked if racism in the community is powerful enough. Another excpetion is when the ethnic minority is itself the powerholding elite. Roman consuls and provincial governors are an example. As are the Manchurians in China, the Aryans in India, and God knows who else. These exceptions aside, though, it is almost impossible to argue that the clear ethnic majority in a society holds more power. Just within the U.S. blacks are descriminated against in the job market, racially profiled by the police, and on a case by case basis serve more jail time than whites for identical crimes. All of this puts a limit on the sort choices one has in life which is a direct antecedent to one's ability to excersize one's free will.

The power of the group. It is a simple matter that enough individuals cooperating toward a common goal can amass a great deal of power. However, it is not a simple matter of majority wins. It is the sum total of all the powers combined that matters and each individual brings in reserves of social, political, economic, and physical power that are allocated for use by the group. I'm surprised I need to argue this point since it is so obvious. A mother who complains about profanity on the airwaves is not likely to change anything by herself unless she has some political power or a lot of money. However, she can make up for a lack of these things by getting more mothers to fight with her. On the flip side though, one person can easily battle a large group of people if he has signicant financial resources because each of his dollars can be used to combat an individual in the opposing group. Even our right to vote is effected like this. Politicans have to learn to walk the fine line between angering the voters who put them in office, and angering their constituents and financiers who keep them in office. How many votes is an extra millions dollar campaign contribution worth?

And as for accountability of our leaders, this still fits with my model because very few leaders have absolute power. Yes are leaders are held accountable for thier actions, but you can not disagree that it takes a lot more to bring them down than it would for a common person like you or me (or me anyway, I don't know anything about you). Power is tenuous, I am not arguing against that. It takes a lot to attain it, and even more to maintain it, but when you have it it is often enjoyed at other's expense.

I think I'll leave it at that for now. These posts are getting too damn long. Mabe I'll talk about God later. The problem with bringing God into these discussions is that it is too paradoxical to be argued clearly. God is like a horoscope. Horoscopes are believable only because they are so vague and cover all the bases. They are never really wrong, but they are never really right either. It's the same thing with God. God covers both sides of any argument too well to ever be argued successfully. Some might call that a good God, but I would just call that a bad argument. By the way I would have posted earlier, but I just bought Soul Reaver 2 and it kind of sucked me in. And the plot is actually pretty salient to our discussion. Anyway, chew on this for a bit and we'll see what comes up.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), November 02, 2001.

Sorry these are late; had some mid-terms today. Here we go:

In response to your last posting:

“Power can take any form, but it is usually recognizes (sic.) by its influence over others. A man who chooses to kill himself has very little power in so far as his display of force is self directed and ONLY affects himself. However, if his death somehow sets in motion a chain of events that effect (sic.) a great number of other people, then I would say he has a lot of power. Of course he could never enjoy the result of such a display, so the [p]oint is worth delving on for the purposes of this discussion. Theoretically, since anyone can just kill anyone else they do technically possess a great deal of power, however, most of us are severely limited by the knowledge that the penalty for such an action would be quite severe.” -Logo

You’re not arguing the point though. In your previous post you said: “...the degree to which we can exercise our free will is directly proportional to the amount of power we possess.” Is not committing suicide an act of free will? Does it have anything to do with power? You see, I only brought up that argument to show that there is no relationship – there is no directly proportional anything. Just because one doesn’t have power, doesn’t mean someone cannot exercise free will. Similarly, just because one does have power, does not mean that they can exercise absolute free will; even rulers have responsibilities –I went over this in my last posting. Now you go on to say that anyone can kill anyone, so that means anyone can possess power. Yet they are limited by the knowledge that there are ripples and ramifications in society that are offset by destructive actions. There is a statute of limitations on that. For example, back to my situation of freedom for all and peace on earth – if I kill everyone, how powerful does that make me? I have already destroyed my ability to have “influence over others,” thus I have no power. We are back to a society of one, and that means I have relinquished the limitations to my free will and I have absolute control –over nothing. I have achieved order at the price of society and power (in the form of influence over people). This is all quite pointless.

Is there a point? With your argument, I can very well twist it around to run counter to Trevor being the savior who achieved “ideological purity.” You said that anyone can kill anyone, and the act of taking someone’s life is an act of control, correct? Yet you said people are limited by the consequences society imposes, correct? Yet, by these standards a serial murderer, a zealot, an utter mad man who has no regard for society, or knowledge of such ramifications for that matter, can exercise “a great deal of power.” Trevor has no regard for laws written for society –he writes them and revokes them. By him brainwashing society, disregarding the members of society is he, in fact, on the same level as murders, zealots, and mad men? Yet, you say no! I agree –I say no too! You see, Trevor is a leader visionary. He is giving people a consciousness. And by giving people a conscience, he is destroying their ability to be “influenced” by him. When all of society is implanted they will be sharing a conscience with him –the people won’t be “influenced” by him, they will be acting like him –or acting as he would. He is, by his own free will, limiting his power with these custodians. By taking away their ability to be “influenced” he is transforming the society into “one” – a very unified “one,” a body. I know you’ll argue that this is not power any more, but absolute power because everyone shares a conscience with Trevor. But I return to my example: so what? Power over what? Freedom to do what? The people’s will and Trevor’s will are one now.

“It is only the rich and ‘powerfull’ (sic.) who can exert this most grotesque display of force over another person and not have to pay the consequences. Hence they are more able to exercise their free will.” – Logo

As for this, in most cases money and power go hand in hand. But let’s not make generalizations. Back to the example about anyone attaining power by taking others’ lives, yes, money has nothing to do with this. In this example, those who are oblivious, or simply defy the consequences of society may flex their free will, their power. One very poor person, implanted with the idea that he is a revolutionary or a God-sent leader can very well get away with murdering a rich person, or many rich people for that matter, depending on the social waters. Isn’t THIS the “most grotesque display of force over another person and not have to pay the consequences?” I think what you mean is that the rich can afford more luxuries, more allies, more costly advantages over the poor, such as private schooling, higher education, they can afford better lawyers, they can fire their workers, etc. I have no objection to this definition of the rich being more powerful than the poor. Yet the individual’s motives and their financial resources are two totally different things. Moreover, one who defines his power in terms of money may find that he has no power once the money is taken away... well, except for that psycho/go- postal type power that anyone “theoretically” might have. Scary. =)

“Of course you are probably objecting to the idea that free will consists solely of the ability to do harm to others, but that is largely the way it is defined in our society. Our laws tell us what we can't do. Even God's laws are proscribed in the manner of "though shalt not." They are restrictions on behavior, restrictions on our power, and thus restriction on our free will. Sure we have certain human rights and freedoms: freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, right to life, right to a fair trial, etc. But those rights and freedoms are revoked if they impinge on other's rights. Examples: we are not free to assemble just anywhere, we can not shout fire in a crowded theater, our right to life ends where another's begins, and a fair trial is an interesting ideal, but it is not possible and has never been achieved.” – Logo

Wow, you called that one! Yes, I do object to the idea that free will consists solely of the ability to do harm to others. And yes, I disagree that that is largely the way it is defined in our society. First off, let me say that the whole of society, no matter how different and dynamic it is or may become, is so radically different that it defines free will in terms of what you can do to others. If there is a society that writes out a constitution in this vein, it must be one really freaky anarchist-republic. No matter how different the people within a society are, they outline their “rules” –I guess that’s as good a word as any- based on the general, shared beliefs of the people. So much so that you probably won’t even find such basic beliefs in our constitution because by participating as a member of society, it’s just a given that one doesn’t go murdering people. Impeding people’s rights is not a right, in our constitution. In a sense we share certain liberties and freedoms since our freedom “ends where another’s begins.” However, this is totally different real world circumstances, and we practice something a little bit different from this in reality. And, of course, there are always exceptions. But remember, we still have free will, and we choose to comply with the system rather than overthrow it; the society doesn’t command the people.

Now things are starting to look full-circle. The next part of your posting says: “Of course the greatest irony is that these basic rights and freedoms, limited though they may be, are only made possible by the threat of governement (sic.) force, i.e. military/police. Basically, we have these rights only because they can so easily and summarily be revoked. However, the entity responsible for granting these freedoms (government, king, God) is more free because it has a "monopoly on the legitimate means of coercion" (to quote Max Weber). ‘The lord giveth, and the lord taketh away’ and always does the lord remain in control.” –Logo

I don’t agree with this, and I fail to see any kind of irony in the situation. Rights aren’t given because they can “so easily and summarily be revoked.” Rights are given because it is the will of the people. Rights are given as a result of representatives throwing us a bone. Rights are given as a result of the public exerting influence by civil war or revolution. In an earlier posting, you said: “Yes we are all raised within the constraints of society, but as we accumulate power we are able to distance ourselves further from the societal ramifications of our actions if we choose to do so.” I agree, we can distance ourselves from society to regain rights, free will, power. For example, if a pregnant teenage woman were to abort her baby in the privacy of her own bathroom and dispose of that child, she could very well be dodging restrictions made by society. Assuming that society doesn’t find out, that perhaps she puts the baby in a blender and buries the remains, she would have exerted her free will and power over the society that grants and revokes rights – even in this case with a mother having control over her child’s life. You may argue that this kind of thing never happens, but every once in a while we see it on the 10 O’clock news – people ducking below radar and exercising their own unique interests, ignoring a right that has very well been taken away –an act that I, personally, find offensive. As for the lord being in control and having a "monopoly on the legitimate means of coercion,” after the example I just mentioned, I sure hope he does.

Regarding this: “And as for accountability of our leaders, this still fits with my model because very few leaders have absolute power. Yes are leaders are held accountable for thier actions, but you can not disagree that it takes a lot more to bring them down than it would for a common person like you or me (or me anyway, I don't know anything about you). Power is tenuous, I am not arguing against that. It takes a lot to attain it, and even more to maintain it, but when you have it it is often enjoyed at other's expense.” –Logo

Enjoyed at the expense of others? Depends on the person, that’s all I’m gonna say.

“The power of the group. It is a simple matter that enough individuals cooperating toward a common goal can amass a great deal of power. However, it is not a simple matter of majority wins.” –Logo

I say it is that simple. No man rules alone. Even with money and influence, if extreme measures are taken by the leader, equally extreme measure can be taken by the members of society. If the society really wanted to, they could just pick themselves up and form a new society, excluding the leader totally. The people comply, the leader thinks he commands. And this is my own personal bias –don’t argue me on this.

Other issues:

“What I meant by ‘we are taught how to think and what to think from the moment we exit the womb’ was that society immediately begins to influence our thoughts and perceptions. This is not to say that we are being brainwashed, rather it is an unavoidable element of human development. No one can be raised in a vacuum. What usually ends up happening though is that people simply accept what they are taught without really questioning it.” –Logo

I agreed with this one, and never brought it up again. It’s somewhat true. The idea that you’re referring to is socialization. I’d be more inclined to state it another way –that the moment one is born, he/she adapts to society’s values/beliefs. That type of adaptation is very well necessary to the survival of that person. It’s not really a choice one has. When one grows older and has his/her own personality and conscience, other forms of government may appeal to that person; other nations with different approaches towards education, medicine, military defense, protection of human rights, etc.; different religious beliefs may be discovered and accepted if it aligns with that individual’s formulated self-defined-experience-driven- relationship-influenced persona. This idea of political socialization states that we tend to orient ourselves with the beliefs of our parents. This is not a problem within society, but rather a side- effect of having a social unit, such as a family. Groups of individuals align themselves with beliefs and this keeps the group together. The social group could very well be dissipated if there are too many conflicting interests.

If you want to keep God out of these arguments, that’s fine by me, although I find that he makes things interesting. As for the rest of your arguments, I shall deem them void. The only points I will debate you on are the ones you stated when I asked you where you stand. I considered the arguments you made before this stand somewhat empty claims –playing “devil’s advocate” just to keep the ball rolling. Bring such issues up again if you think they are important to the understanding of this episode, otherwise –I’ve already moved ahead. Regarding my argument style –the questions I use are mostly rhetorical. The questions I don’t answer myself, I expect you to fill in the blanks. I use these questions as surrogates for extracting an individual’s point of view. These are complex issues. This is one of those episodes that “tells more about you, than it does about the characters” type-deal.

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), November 05, 2001.

fluxxie

-- William (stateofflux@yahoo.com), November 06, 2001.

Um, I fucked up on one of my posts. I should have answered the fucking question anyhow. And I'm not getting back to this discussion as I should.

But it jarred me so much that I made an immediate response to this question to which I'm still rather unprepared to hazard any satisfactory answer at least for my own purposes of interest. But what I'm compelled to get at here is the very question of what Trevor's clinical or other objectives or research interests may in fact ever have proven to be. To try again here, I now suspect that in every case - the custodians, the copies, maybe even the (disintegration?-) virus from LTV - humanity was not what was being improved upon, nor even the original concern or interest except perhaps if by exclusion). None of this was really being done for society; for if you may be led to believe that you only demonstrate how impertinent such considerations as "society" or even "humanity" really amount to being, why we've got to get rid of you, if nothing else. No.

To put it bluntly, ultimately the Custodian is the true Breen. And Humanity, if it is a principal interest in terms of whatever might be our own, then only as an unknown quantity still strictly under development, whose realization as an objective of our effort will include that of its own original, synthetic definition. Creation of a new thing in the world whose only prior history were fictive, fraudulent, the history of an conceit, untenable and arbitrary and just as hysterical, of something which for lack of its own existence attempted to contrive the Original Impsture - or some sort of shit to that effect.

Sorry.

-- dangerboy (artian@earthlink.net), November 06, 2001.

The Custodian the true Breen. Humanity still under development...are you saying the Breens are a progressive race under the guidance of the Custodian influence?

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), November 06, 2001.

dangerboy:

Cleary Trevor's vision of the future of Bregna involves the Custodian, or some future advent of the Custodial solution, to a major degree. I think we both agree there.

And I think we also agree that Trevor thinks a society of people, as we undertand them, is full of problems because it is bound to be frought with inconsistencies. Trevor seems to be wiping the slate clean so that he can start anew. So he creates "a new thing in the world whose only prior history were fictive, fraudulent, the history of an conceit, untenable and arbitrary and just as hysterical, of something which for lack of its own existence attempted to contrive the Original Impsture."

What I don't understand about your position is where that puts Trevor. If "the Breens were for - IT" as you say, why would he bother to "contrive the original imposture." Why pull himself down into that same ideological mire that has plagued society since the beginning of time. Since all legitimacy is arbitrary, the only true legitimacy lies completely within itself.

You seem to be describing two different Trevors. One is a scientist concerned only with the process, repeated and improved upon add infinitem. The other is an engineer concerned only with results. For the scientist the idea of a fraudulent history is an irrational concern as is the thing itself for the engineer. The two positions are irreconcilable.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), November 06, 2001.

cynical:

The act of suicide IS an expression of power. I will grant you that. However, I maintain that it is an exception to the rule that I have stated because it is an expression of power focused on destroying itself. The "free will as a function of power" formula still stands because power, no matter how insignificant, when directed against itself is always self-negating.

Yes, suicide is an act of free will, but as a self-negating expression of free will the actual amount of power involved is insignificant. Whatever the amount, it always cancels itself out and you are left with a null set.

However suicide can sometimes be an expression of real power. Like when such an act is symbolic of some deeper principal or conviction and has an effect on a larger group of people. For instance, willing political or religious martyrdom is an awesome expression of power precisely because it is directed outward, toward some other force, or organization, and not turned back upon itself.

However, most people who commit suicide do so precisely because they feel impotent, and insignificant, as if their existence is imperceptible and worthless. So even on a deeper psychological level, our sense of self, our power, is intricately interwoven with our percieved ability to effect the lives of others.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), November 06, 2001.

We have lift off!!!

To return to a much earlier post in this thread, what makes men mad is that they do not obey social norms. Murderers and zealots are often considered mad, but they are just as often not if they have a socially acceptable reason for their actions. So is Trevor a mad man? Yes, if his mission fails and he is superceded by another opposing regime. No, if his mission is a success and his method becomes the norm. In defining society Trevor defines madness, and very few rulers would label themselves as mad.

----

Those who are oblivious of the law are free to act as they will; however they are not absolved of paying the consequences. Those with the power to manipulate the law are absolved of paying the consequences. The rich have such power in the form of lawyers and bribes. The poor have no such recourse and are thus powerless in the face of the law.

----

You agree that our freedom ends where another's begins, but don't you think that suggests that free will is partially an illusion. If someone else has more freedom than I, then they also possess a greater abiltiy to express their free will. And where does their freedom come from. Power. Remember free will is not the same as freedom of choice. If I choose to be garroted rather than evicerated, it does not change the fact that someone is still forcing me to choose a horribly painful death no matter which option I take.

------

"Rights are given because it is the will of the people. Rights are given as a result of representatives throwing us a bone. Rights are given as a result of the public exerting influence by civil war or revolution."

Your choice of words here is intersting on several points. First is your choice of the word "given." I chose that word because it is indicative of a gift, which can always be retracted. It supports my belief that the notion of inalienable rights is tenuous. The fact that you continued to use it suggests that you believe so as well. You go on to say why rights are given. Representative throwing us a bone. This is not an image indicative of the free willing, equality to all, society that you have been arguing for. To be honest, I couldn't have said it better myself, as often times, that is all that rights amount to. A bone tossed to a starving dog to tide him over just enough so that he doesn't bite the hand that feeds him. And then you mention civil war and revolution. What are civil war and revolution if not the most blatant and grotesque displays of power over other individuals. Individuals exerting their own power, to be sure, but still no less a display for all its justification. In this case you might say that rights are won, not given, but they are still won at others' expense and maintained through a military machine of pure brute force which can be redirected at future revolutionaries at any time.

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In response to one of my earlier comments you mention people, like the pregnat teen mother, ducking below society's radar. Though this is partially an act of free will I would not label it as an expression of power because she would still fear being caught. Whereas the poor must operate under the radar to have any kind of expression free will, the rich use their power and influence to exert their free will through LEGITIMATE channels. For instance, a poor man commits murder, he runs. A rich man commits murder and he hires a team of expensive lawyers to contort the law beyond all recognition and squeeze his case through any loophole big enough to fit it; regardless of the actual circumstances of the case. Whereas the poor man lives in fear of being caught, the rich man sleeps soundly after he gets off knowing that the appearance of legitimacy has been maintained and he is vindicated in the eyes of the law. And who makes the law? Usually the rich.

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"As for the lord being in control and having a "monopoly on the legitimate means of coercion,” after the example I just mentioned, I sure hope he does."

How can you say this? You argue for the sanctity of free will and the freedom of choice, and then you essentially say that you would hand it all over for a little law and order old school style. A central point of my argument has been that there is a shifting dynamic between law and order and free will. You can not have both. By conceding the God has a monopoly on the legitamate means of coercion you have conceded your own desire to be controlled. What makes the State any different from God? Would you sacrifice what remains of your free will to the State if it meant more law and order (not that you would have much of a choice mind you)?

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If it were a simple matter of majority wins then it would only take two peopel to oust one leader. Your own example proves you wrong because you demonstrate how it would take a whole society just to oust one leader. (But I won't argue you on this).

Going back to your first two paragraphs of this post, you definitely hit an important point. Power can not exist in a vacuum. While I disagree that Trevor attaining ideological purity within Bregna would destroy his ability to influence the populace (after all they could always be reprogrammed), I agree whole heartedly that his power does depend on the people. Every leader has to face the fact that no matter how much he looks down on the populace, he needs them to maintain his power. Not necessarily because they can overthrow him, but because to destroy them would be to destroy the very means by which he defines himself as a leader. The populace has a similar dilemma in that they have to decide how much shit they will take in exchange for certain securities. Always at stake though, is the tradeoff between free will and security; having power and keeping power. I agree with you that when taken to extremes any political system seems ridiculous and pointless because it is self-defeating.

In the final analysis humanity probably is doomed to struggle against itself because even amidst all the death, that is the only way to truly preserve the vital nature of life.

(Go see Memento; it deals with this existentialist dilemma, but on the scale of an individual).

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), November 06, 2001.

See? If I'm not even on crack yet I could go find out what th fuss is all about and no friggin harm done or what - shit, I'm winging it too much so I am going to try to pre-compose my responses in future.

Barb E: Breens a progressive guide under Custodian guidance?" No - if anything I'm only tripping on the tentative tangent that (although Trevor would sell anyone especially himself on what his business is with exactly such language) what if inventions like his custodians are all that ought to matter at all. I'm wondering what this slick guy really has in mind through all of it. I'm thinking that the custodians or the copies were the baby and the whole of Breen society and history, including the human populations that comprise it were the bathwater, the dross, the expendable stuff and not the other way around.

I'm thinking that this is a motherfucker who might even think himself that we're all on the same page he is when using a term like "humanity", but (too conveniently) somehow fails to reflect how that's impossible given how aleatory, plastic, his own idea of humanity can be when we're hoping to have full Custodian deployment by early next quarter if we still don't have any management issues coming up about what to do about ALL THE ANTICIPATED TONNAGE OF REDUNDANY WETWARE OVERLOAD...

Logo: No. I was saying (or trying to) that Trevor meant "humanity" as we collectively try to concur it to be, were the "new thing in the world" (referring to how it regarded itself in regards to its own origins), that he considers to be this unfortunate cosmic delusion, that with his Custodians that could finally be corrected. I'm saying this guy is terribly dangerous because, as he really DOES "know it all", is prepared to invoke a violence of strange vision upon a world he never made and succeed in doing so for reasons so profound it might then no longer matter they had been only all the wrong ones! That it would be a senseless tragedy when the world, if only for lack of its own self-knowledge, should thereby lose itself in the wake of a theory whose realization were contingent on the world's destruction through a profound, new redefinition...

-- dangerboy (artian@earthlink.net), November 06, 2001.

But in invoking such a "violence of strange vision" wouldn't he be creating a new world that's just as valid as the old one? How do we know the old one isn't someone else's "violence of strange vision." Birth is a "violence of strange vision" that results in the creation of an infinte universe of possibilities, but at the expense of the destruction of the safe, but stagnant womb. Maybe Trevor has grown too big for the womb. Maybe it's time to give humanity a C section and yank it out, kicking and screaming into the world of his vision. Humanity would still be present in this new world in so far as Trevor is himself a product of humanity.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), November 06, 2001.

Oh and by the way cynical, I don't know which argument you are deeming void and pronouncing as empty claims, but you damn well better give good reasons why oh high God of debate. I don't like being dismissed out of hand. Either your backing down, or you're crazy because for every point I made, you seemed to argue just as vehemently.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), November 06, 2001.

You only argued the following point, so I will only respond to the following point. Read what I wrote; I said I merely brought up that point to show that there is no directly proportional relationship between the power one has and his ability to exercise free will. FREE WILL. I didn’t bring up power in this way. I said just because someone may not have power – in social standing/influence over people, doesn’t mean that they CANNOT express their free will, in this case, to kill himself! Got it?? It was you who said, “The act of suicide IS an expression of power. I will grant you that.” -which you can’t even grant me because I never even said that. YOU are the one using power and free will interchangeably, not I. I wasn’t debating suicide as power at all – you are taking that all out of context- I am arguing weather committing suicide is done by one’s free will. And we’ve already gone over this. ONLY by free will can one end his life. But I’ll humor this premise because the argument can’t continue if this premise is terminated. “However, I maintain that it is an exception to the rule that I have stated because it is an expression of power focused on destroying itself.” –Logo This is kinda vague. What is the “it” in this sentence? The act of committing suicide? The power destroying itself? The person? If the “it” means the action of committing suicide, then it is the act of committing suicide destroying itself? You mean the person, right? The vessel of “power?” You continue to go: “The ‘free will as a function of power’ formula still stands because power, no matter how insignificant, when directed against itself is always self-negating.” Free will as a function of power? Are you still going back to that “absolute power means absolute free will?” Read the arguments I wrote against that again. Are you saying because someone has acted upon free will, that he is destroying the fact that he exercised free will? That, in fact, he never exercised anything? Gimme a break. The guy committed suicide; that is an act of free will. An act of power...? Well, that’s different then, but I never argued that. And the formula doesn’t “still” stand – this is the first time you’ve brought it up. “Yes, suicide is an act of free will, but as a self-negating expression of free will the actual amount of power involved is insignificant. Whatever the amount, it always cancels itself out and you are left with a null set.” -Logo Here is something I can argue. So it’s self-negating? So what? The free will act is to end one’s free will altogether. This just proves that your directly proportional formula doesn’t work. I shall say it again: read carefully what I wrote in earlier postings, I wasn’t even arguing this claim. Yes, I’ll grant you it has relevance, but this is a conclusion you came up with on your own, and has nothing to do with my argument. “However suicide can sometimes be an expression of real power. Like when such an act is symbolic of some deeper principal or conviction and has an effect on a larger group of people. For instance, willing political or religious martyrdom is an awesome expression of power precisely because it is directed outward, toward some other force, or organization, and not turned back upon itself.” -Logo You’re right. In this case too, the act of suicide is by someone’s free will. But what do you mean “real power?” You defined power as “the influence over others.” I went along with this. So a person kills himself and influences a whole lot of people in society. You’re saying this is “real” power, rather than free will, right? Sure, I’ll buy that. “However, most people who commit suicide do so precisely because they feel impotent, and insignificant, as if their existence is imperceptible and worthless. So even on a deeper psychological level, our sense of self, our power, is intricately interwoven with our percieved (sic.) ability to effect (sic.) the lives of others.” –Logo I like your use of language here. It’s so much better. The “ability to affect the lives of others” implies both good and bad - not just the ability to do harm to others like in the previous post. So what? What is the end result exactly -regardless of the intentions? Is he (the person committing suicide) trying to sway/affect others or not? If the answer is yes, then his free will is at the same level as the guy above –the guy with a cause, the guy with a reason to commit suicide. Sure, this one has less power, and the other guy more, but his power will be nil if/when he is dead. The person who dies for the cause transfers his power to the cause, to the group, or whatever. Hell, I don’t know. The bottom line is that the power the both of them started off with does not affect how much free will either person can exercise, for they have already exercised it, fully and completely. Q.E.D. There is no directly proportional relationship to the amount of power one has and the amount of free will one can exercise because a man with power who commits suicide is exercising the same amount of free will as the man who has NO power. If you wanna debate this further, the burden of proof is on you because you will be making a statement that regards ALL situations of free will and power, whereas I am not supporting the claim -simply because it would take a whole lot of time, evidence and analysis before any kind of safe, logical conclusion can be made. I’m not gonna spend another sitting debating you on claims I haven’t even made because some of these positions are utterly difficult to argue. You wanna argue; attack me where I stand. Don’t go putting words in my mouth.

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), November 07, 2001.

e-gad, you were posting while i was typing... that last posting is an anachronism i guess.

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), November 07, 2001.

Oh oh. The Custodians were the baby and humanity is the eventual redundant tonnage of wetware bathwater? Once a number is fixed of Custodians and serves whatever purpose Trevor may feel useful, then I'm guessing the problem of disposal of tonnage comes up, and then what's next? The ultimate solution? T.G seems a mad tyrant in this light. What of the daughters he loved or his love for Aeon? How would he reconcile appreciation for Custodianless souls? Himself?

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), November 07, 2001.

Hey Logo-

I'm gonna be out for the rest of the week; I'm getting slammed with tests and homework all of a sudden. I'll post answers sometime during the weekend. And don't mind the other 2 postings because they don't apply to the time period... if that makes sense. Sorry if this causes any inconveniences.

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), November 07, 2001.

Dangerboy,

If fitting the whole of Bregna with Custodians is indeed what Trevor wants - and I don't know if it is (notice he didn't implant Aeon), why would he need to replace the "wetware"? Wouldn't a society of controlled humans be more satisfying than one entirely made of stick-figure robots? And how do you know Trevor would implant everyone, anyway? Or was he "phasing" towards that, all along... hmm. Personally, I prefer a more symbolic interpretation: that the line between robot, dupe, and implantee is a thin one.

-- Inukko (nadisrec@worldnet.att.net), November 07, 2001.

And I'm still unsure this is Mark Mars I'm talking to... why speculate about an episode you co-wrote? Or did you just grab this off the shelf one day, watch it, and think "whoa... I never noticed that" (which, if that's the case, would be pretty damn cool)

-- Inukko (nadisrec@worldnet.att.net), November 07, 2001.

Correction: The FINAL Solution. Inuko: power corrupts, this includes brain cells. Remember we were all going to be ruled by the blonde headed master race known as the Arians. Hitler himself meanwhile had brown hair (?). It seems T.G. has always wanted absolute control. When he duplicated Aeon his statement was, "I have you anyway anyone could imagine". (O.k, that kind of talk is great for the night but...) He would achieve total control over a race implanted, and the brain his design. Of course the obvious problem is that race can not elevate itself beyond the master designer as their function is prescribed behavior.

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), November 07, 2001.

Inukko, Mark Mars was no co-writer of "The Purge". You're thinking of Eric Singer. Stop trying to confuse everybody. Especially M. Mars. Now he probably thinks he DID write it.

-- Peter Chung (neo830holy@orgio.net), November 08, 2001.

Haha... yeah, I guess I got the two mixed up. Sorry about that.

-- Inukko (nadisrec@worldnet.att.net), November 09, 2001.

Why do I get the feeling Mark Mars has been up "writing" for 18 hours straight...

-- Inukko (nadisrec@worldnet.att.net), November 09, 2001.

Yeah, no, alas. In fact I always have opined The Purge to have been my vote as #1 best out of the ten (give or take The Demiurge but the latter I've actually only seen a couple of timesbut I think it was fucking great shit please I dunno how I managed not snagging a copy of either Demiurge or Purge; stranger things have happened for me but not too many).

I'm only betting that Trevor's ambitions might be more inhuman than one may hazard any sane speculation - more inhuman than inhuman, even but hm.

-- dangerboy (artian@earthlink.net), November 10, 2001.

Oh baby, what a week! Sorry no posts in a while. Here goes...

“To return to a much earlier post in this thread, what makes men mad is that they do not obey social norms. Murderers and zealots are often considered mad, but they are just as often not if they have a socially acceptable reason for their actions. So is Trevor a mad man? Yes, if his mission fails and he is superceded by another opposing regime. No, if his mission is a success and his method becomes the norm. In defining society Trevor defines madness, and very few rulers would label themselves as mad.” -Logo

Yes, we knew this already. The reason revolutionaries are labeled as rebels are because they have lost. The reason mad men are labeled mad is because their actions don’t make sense to the rest of us. If they happen to have socially acceptable reasons, this may still be looked upon as wrong if they took improper actions or immoral actions. Everything’s up for grabs. Anything that happens in history is up for some harsh criticism. And this opens up traps that can never be sprung. Statements like, “Everyone is selfish” may be very well true. But what about Mother Teresa who won a Nobel Prize for her work on behalf of India’s poor. This must be an exception to the claim, right? But Mother Teresa must have worked for the poor because it made her feel good, which is a selfish motive, or because she would have felt guilty if she had not worked for the poor, which is another kind of selfish motive. What now? Just because you are doing something you enjoy, doesn’t make you selfish. We are not arguing the claim at this point; only the definition of “selfish.” And different words mean different things to different people. Trevor defining society defines madness? Yes. He is dodging his own conscience. Instead of people viewing his actions as wrong, instead of changing himself to fit society’s definition of “good” or “noble” he is dodging his own conscience by making his conscience the norm. When one’s conscience is the norm, nobody will see themselves as wrong because, like you said, people rarely define themselves as mad or unreasonable. He is doing this for numerous reasons. He could be doing this to control the public, to impress Aeon, to keep the bad people in line, to be the savior of Bregna, to avoid changing himself; I don’t know. I won’t tell you what to think. You may criticize him all you want, but if it were up to me the end does not justify the means. And certainly all of the suggestions I mentioned as the driving force for Trevor’s actions place Trevor in a “weaker” position, seeing as how it is ultimately HE who must be doing all the hard work, the change. It is he who is serving the public, struggling to change the public’s conscience, working to impress Aeon, working to be the people’s savior –even if that is clear only to him and no one else, even if their viewing him as a savior is dependent on the custodian that he created.

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“Those who are oblivious of the law are free to act as they will; however they are not absolved of paying the consequences. Those with the power to manipulate the law are absolved of paying the consequences. The rich have such power in the form of lawyers and bribes. The poor have no such recourse and are thus powerless in the face of the law.” –Logo

You’re arguing power in a real post hoc kind of way. You see, just because we see events happen in sequence does not mean one happened because of the other. This is best illustrated with the rooster sunrise. The rooster crows and the sun rises. The rooster’s crow must make the sun rise; if the rooster doesn’t crow the sun will not rise. This is false. There is a relation between the sun rising and the rooster crowing, but one does not cause the other. Notice also that the rooster can crow and the sun can come up 100% of all occurrences, but that does not warrant a cause-affect relationship. Just because one thing happens does not mean the other will automatically happen. Similarly, when something doesn’t happen, the other event may happen regardless. The sequence of events does not prove an effect-causality relationship. Both may be independent. The rooster crowing is independent of the sun rising –in fact, the sun doesn’t even “rise,” but that’s something else. The rooster can NOT crow and the sun would still rise. That let’s us weed out shoddy statistics like “100% of all people who ate tomato soup yesterday will die.” I’m not saying your statement here is way off, I’m just saying that you are discounting other important variables that may offset the effect. Causality being that person x is rich, and effect being that he is absolved of paying the consequences. Are the poor more fearless? Are the rich truly more powerful? Are the rich not kept in check better because they have more to lose? Could it be that what truly makes one “powerful” is the motives and coordination of the plan, not the money? Don’t the rich put their power ultimately into the hands of people who are outside of the umbrella of the rich man’s power? Don’t rich people just hire hit-men? Isn’t it the hit-men who have the true power? Does the rich man ever say to the hit-man, “No, I refuse to pay you; go to hell.”

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“You agree that our freedom ends where another's begins, but don't you think that suggests that free will is partially an illusion. If someone else has more freedom than I, then they also possess a greater abiltiy to express their free will. And where does their freedom come from. Power. Remember free will is not the same as freedom of choice. If I choose to be garroted rather than evicerated, it does not change the fact that someone is still forcing me to choose a horribly painful death no matter which option I take.” –Logo

Free will isn’t an illusion. It’s part of a system where there are restrictions. Free will –you can do anything you want. You can rape a woman –you can rape as many women as you want, by your own free will. Just realize that there are consequences. Consequences stop people, but to others the consequences mean nothing. Law encourages people not to do things, but they are still free to do it. Dang, I think you’re more cynical than I am –and my screen name is cynical! Remember how you were going on that society is all about restrictions and how they are written in terms of “thou shalt not” and “you can’t do...”? Well, since technically you can still do things that you’re told not to do, I think that means we still have free will. Freedom of choice is what we have when the situation does not allow absolute free will –meaning some of our rights have already been taken away. Your “What do you want on your tombstone?” example has a rather bleak outcome, I admit. Yes, in this most extreme case, your choice makes little difference on your ultimate fate. But I think there’s still some freedom of choice in there. I’d pick being eviscerated just because that sounds cooler. Oh, and you still have some freedom of choice when they carry out the execution. I mean, you can call the executioner names and stuff, spit in his face; that’s what I’d do –if they don’t restrict my free will further by shoving a towel down my throat.

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"Rights are given because it is the will of the people. Rights are given as a result of representatives throwing us a bone. Rights are given as a result of the public exerting influence by civil war or revolution." -cynical

“Your choice of words here is intersting on several points. First is your choice of the word "given." I chose that word because it is indicative of a gift, which can always be retracted. It supports my belief that the notion of inalienable rights is tenuous. The fact that you continued to use it suggests that you believe so as well. You go on to say why rights are given. Representative throwing us a bone. This is not an image indicative of the free willing, equality to all, society that you have been arguing for. To be honest, I couldn't have said it better myself, as often times, that is all that rights amount to. A bone tossed to a starving dog to tide him over just enough so that he doesn't bite the hand that feeds him. And then you mention civil war and revolution. What are civil war and revolution if not the most blatant and grotesque displays of power over other individuals. Individuals exerting their own power, to be sure, but still no less a display for all its justification. In this case you might say that rights are won, not given, but they are still won at others' expense and maintained through a military machine of pure brute force which can be redirected at future revolutionaries at any time.” –Logo

Word choice, schmurd choice. I was using juxtaposition there, buddy. Give me some creative breathing room, jeez. Yes, we are at the mercy of representatives some times –we want them to do one thing and they do another. But the representatives are at our mercy some times as well –when it’s an election year. The power there is a tradeoff. We put them there, we participate in suggesting laws, but it’s up to us to act according to the laws they help to pass. I used “Representatives throwing us a bone,” to illustrate what it seems – to people like you, especially. But that is not the case. The lawmakers don’t wield as much power as your statements seem to be implying. Even the lawmakers themselves are subject to the laws they pass. People are more harsh or more merciful depending on what leader/president x did for us. If the economy was good: “Hey, he had an affair with an intern; so what?” If the economy was bad and we had wars: “Hey, that guy wasn’t doing his job –he was screwing around; impeach him! And your thing about civil wars and revolutions being the most blatant and grotesque display of power over the individuals. I don’t really agree with that, but you can believe it if you want. The way I see it is that it may not be right, but going back to what I said earlier, the winner gets to write history. The revolutionaries will be labeled different things depending on the outcome. Minority, majority has nothing to do with this. But usually it takes the majority of the public to believe in a certain idea in order to support the winning side of a revolution or civil war. Is what the outcome is labeled necessarily the right outcome? No. There are people today think that the South should have won. As for the military machine being brute force that can turn on the revolutionaries at any time –yeah, yeah; that’s a given. But you see, revolutionaries should be acting out the people’s will. If they don’t, they get their ass overthrown. That’s just the way it is. And that really does happen –the oppressed become the oppressors. Is this the MOST blatant and grotesque displays of power over other individuals? I really don’t care. Believe what you want; I don’t think it really matters. It can be argued both ways. Outside of the socio-economic-cultural norm, anything and everything human beings do can be considered “wrong.” Both sides can be argued until the end of time and there will still be no solution.

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“In response to one of my earlier comments you mention people, like the pregnat teen mother, ducking below society's radar. Though this is partially an act of free will I would not label it as an expression of power because she would still fear being caught. Whereas the poor must operate under the radar to have any kind of expression free will, the rich use their power and influence to exert their free will through LEGITIMATE channels. For instance, a poor man commits murder, he runs. A rich man commits murder and he hires a team of expensive lawyers to contort the law beyond all recognition and squeeze his case through any loophole big enough to fit it; regardless of the actual circumstances of the case. Whereas the poor man lives in fear of being caught, the rich man sleeps soundly after he gets off knowing that the appearance of legitimacy has been maintained and he is vindicated in the eyes of the law. And who makes the law? Usually the rich.” -Logo

Again, sequence of events does not warrant an effect-causality relationship. Just because one is rich does not mean she can get off easy or make laws. Motive, determination, character –untouchable stuff like that is what defines the outcome of a certain trail, a society. This is my personal preference, this is what I want to believe. Argue it if you must, but I’m warning you: it’s philosophy. And your whole thing about poor people running and rich people hiring lawyers and bribing people –isn’t that running anyway? I think the one who does no running is the person who takes responsibility for his actions and does not make a fuss. The rich guy is hiding behind his team of lawyers. And I think the “actual circumstances of the case” matter. Evidence is needed for any kind of critical claim such as this. Going back to what I said earlier, even if things happen in sequence 100% of the time doesn’t mean we should jump to conclusions that the rooster makes the sun rise. The two may happen –one after the other, but one does not cause the other. The poor man lives in fear. Really? Going to jail: cafeteria meals, four walls, somewhat safer conditions than living on the streets, in some jails there is even internet access. Does the poor person have anything to lose? Does he live in fear? He might not, but you make it sound as if every poor person lives in fear. The rich person going to sleep soundly? What the hell?? It is HE who has more to lose. It is HIS image on the television screens –nobody cares about the poor person’s trial so much as to broadcast it. The rich man has everything to loose, and he will have to do more “adapting” to prison than the poor guy, if he actually goes there. But you’re saying that the rich man is so confident in his money and power that he doesn’t have to worry about being caught. I don’t like statements like this because they discount too many variables. I mean, how much money are we talking bout here? How rich is this rich man? Is he a political figure? The president of Sony Corp? Is he suspected of murdering his wife? Embezzling money? Did he traffic drugs? How many lives did he destroy? By poor, do you mean the people living on the streets? The middle class? The homeless? And your statement that rich people write all the laws is even more overly-generalized. But I support you. Yeah, rich people WANT to give a portion of their paycheck to the poor by means of welfare. Really. They wrote that law, didn’t they? Yeah, if they really wanted to, they wouldn’t have to pay taxes too, right? Whatever. Politicians may do favors for rich people, but it is the politicians who have the power. The rich just have money. If they were placed in any other kind of situation where money is irrelevant, that person will, in fact, be worse-off than any other person. If a rich guy’s maid dies –what will he eat?? Oh no, what will he wear? You argue he could hire another butler or maid, but what if nobody wants to help this particular person? The rich man’s power comes from the backing of other people. The reason the rich are rich is because being “rich” is paired with other skills –being intelligent, having the ability to inspire people to work for them, having a strong voice. These characteristics alone cannot achieve fiscal dreams, but it takes the right combination and the right use of such skills. There is no man who is rich enough to be outside of the law. There aren’t cops who arrest a rich man and go, “Oh, it’s you Mr. Millionbucks! Sorry, I didn’t realize it was you. You can get out of here; we’ll clean up the dead body. Sorry for your trouble.” The truly powerful man won’t even have to deal with the trail -period. But the outcome of the rich man getting off or going to jail depends on a whole system of variables –how badly the odds are stacked against him is one just one of them. I’m not even going to mention any more. And the fact that you couldn’t even mention one or two cases of rich people in real life that won cases because of their money is proof enough for me that this claim is lacking in some respects.

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"As for the lord being in control and having a "monopoly on the legitimate means of coercion,” after the example I just mentioned, I sure hope he does." How can you say this? You argue for the sanctity of free will and the freedom of choice, and then you essentially say that you would hand it all over for a little law and order old school style. A central point of my argument has been that there is a shifting dynamic between law and order and free will. You can not have both. By conceding the God has a monopoly on the legitamate means of coercion you have conceded your own desire to be controlled. What makes the State any different from God? Would you sacrifice what remains of your free will to the State if it meant more law and order (not that you would have much of a choice mind you)?” –Logo

I always thought that law and order is dynamic as well, and changes with society. If certain people act in accordance with the law, doesn’t mean that they are obeying it. Maybe they are just acting by their free will, it just so happens that the law reflects what they’re doing. Why don’t people drive on the opposite side of the road, into opposing traffic? Well, by one’s own free will, one could try, but the results are somewhat discouraging. It could be done, technically, if enough people want it, but it’s too hard to change the system, furthermore it would be too complicated to change every single road sign and traffic light. What’s wrong with the current system? Well, I want to drive on the other side of traffic. So what is government doing? It is trying to organize things, create order. People follow it to avoid problems. And in most cases it is easy to follow these rules. But what about the person who finds it difficult to drive on the right side of the road? What about the person who finds it difficult not to kill a person? Well, that person should live out in the wilderness. That unregulated wilderness where one can have absolute free will. If one can’t handle the system, he should go to that wilderness. He should try to implant people with custodians to change people’s conscience to match his. He should do something to achieve a society of one. But when someone does that, what does he have? More responsibility? Yes. Killing and cooking your own food, for one thing. In Trevor’s case, creating new jobs and such to keep the people happy. Government is a tradeoff, yes. It all depends on how much the people believe in the system. If it coincides with their values then it’s cool. If not, there should be change –change to accommodate more or less free will. Right now we are trading our privacy for security. At airports we have our privacy invaded because we want terrorists to be found. It’s true that we can’t have both free will and order, because other people have different agendas. But why can’t I say both? I can say anything I want. You don’t have to agree with it if you don’t want to. And because our government coincides with my beliefs, I can say that it is my right. It is my right to free speech that allows me to say that without any oppression from the government. Yes, I argue for the sanctity of free will, freedom of choice, and other things. By MY freedom of choice, I choose to believe in God. And yes, there is a difference between the State and God, okay? Handing my rights over to God is not the same as handing my rights over to the government. There is a spiritual element in God that I cannot find in government. That is why I choose to pray to God and not the government. Sacrificing free will for more law and order depends on the kind of order we’re talking about. Be more specific. Those are my beliefs. You knew them even before you asked the question(s). I don’t seem like the type of guy who would trade some of my rights if it means a little more law and order? Well, surprise; I do. That’s just me. What do you suppose is the right thing to believe in? Are YOU saying that there is no difference between God and the State? Please clarify if that is what you are saying. ------

“If it were a simple matter of majority wins then it would only take two peopel to oust one leader. Your own example proves you wrong because you demonstrate how it would take a whole society just to oust one leader. (But I won't argue you on this).” –Logo

Look, man. I said don’t argue it. If it were a simple matter of majority wins then it WOULD only take two people to oust one leader. My own example doesn’t prove me wrong –if it does, you didn’t say WHY. It demonstrates how it would take a whole society just to oust one leader – give me a break, man. That’s not what I was saying at all. My point was the leader needs the people. If the society WERE just three people –the leader and two guys, the other two guys could totally take on the leader. The leader surviving the majority depends on his characteristics –his intelligence, physical strength, etc. The leader could use divide and conquer tactics and so forth, but that depends on the leader. If it were even grounds the majority would still win, just because two can dogpile one. By the leader winning, you are assuming that he has a kind of power hold over the others –a kind of advantage over them, physically or technologically. He could be physically stronger than the two guys, or he could have the edge if the two have knives and the leader has a gun. But we can’t really assume anything because in the example you brought up, you didn’t designate any kind of upperhandedness. Furthermore, in the case with a society picking up and leaving the leader all by himself, yes it does take the whole society. By the leader winning, you are assuming he has backing, that the society is split, and that the leader has flunkies that act out his “will.” Like the case with the rich man, the leader elevates others to a level where he can request that an army move out and the flunky agrees. If the leader has no flunkies, all it takes is one person to say, “fuck you” and duel it out with the leader. But in either example, the leader’s stronghold of power is very loose, it ultimately depends on the people, which you agree with in your next paragraph.

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“Going back to your first two paragraphs of this post, you definitely hit an important point. Power can not exist in a vacuum. While I disagree that Trevor attaining ideological purity within Bregna would destroy his ability to influence the populace (after all they could always be reprogrammed), I agree whole heartedly that his power does depend on the people. Every leader has to face the fact that no matter how much he looks down on the populace, he needs them to maintain his power. Not necessarily because they can overthrow him, but because to destroy them would be to destroy the very means by which he defines himself as a leader. The populace has a similar dilemma in that they have to decide how much shit they will take in exchange for certain securities. Always at stake though, is the tradeoff between free will and security; having power and keeping power. I agree with you that when taken to extremes any political system seems ridiculous and pointless because it is self-defeating.

In the final analysis humanity probably is doomed to struggle against itself because even amidst all the death, that is the only way to truly preserve the vital nature of life. (Go see Memento; it deals with this existentialist dilemma, but on the scale of an individual).” –Logo

When you first mentioned vacuum, you were talking about it in the context of nobody being raised in a sociopolitical vacuum. For the most part that is reasonable. But that is already out of the question. If one exists outside of the realm of society, outside of civilization, that already frees us from much of the problems brought out by society, no? That society is much like a relationship with the opposite sex. We get things out of it, but we also must do things we wouldn’t have to do otherwise, we must make compromises and so forth. Every society, every argument must have conflicting views. No side has a complete and total grasp on truth. Truth is contingent. Even the other side of an argument –my side of the argument, no matter how useless and pointless it may seem helps to strengthen the opinions of others. Nobody has truly :nothing: important to add to a discussion. Even the losing side, whichever side that may be, puts up examples and cites evidence that would not have been there otherwise. Without this opposing opinion, one continues with what is believed to be the “right” choice, though it may not be completely accurate. But this is what society is. Our society revolves around the mix of opposing views. This constant arguing over right, over truth makes every view important and leads us to the belief that the correct answer will be found, even if it will never be found. This gives us a message in itself –that human beings need each other in order to survive. Without each other, does any society exist? If everyone were implanted with the same conscience, would they be able to correct one another, find the answer by argumentation and opposition? Can a society built on this very foundation find progress and truth without looking at the other side? And to this I answer “no.”

You defined power as “the ability to influence others.” But if Trevor implants a society with custodians, you will have a society thinking as he would. Yet if they are acting under his will, are they even acting by their OWN will? If the answer is no, then Trevor has usurped the power from the people. If the answer is yes, then they are no longer being “influenced” by Trevor –they are sharing a conscience with him. Trevor has lost his power because they no longer need to be “influenced” by him, because they are already acting and thinking like him. You get what I’m saying? If Trevor were to die after everyone is implanted, the society would continue because they are basically HIM. He destroys his power this way because he no longer HAS TO influence them. They are already influenced, and this is a society of one. Even more problem arise with the technicalities of the custodian. For example: If the custodian dictates a conscience that IS Trevor’s, anyone can attempt to seize power, and since this action is OK in Trevor’s conscience (seeing as how this is what he has done) would you have a society of Trevors? Still, a society of one? A society of people trying to attain power by violating each other’s rights –complete chaos, which is the exact opposite of the intentions of this experiment? OR does the custodian prevent such overthrowing behavior. Even if the custodian has been changed this way, that goes to show you that no one can have Trevor’s conscience, for that would be a self-destroying government. He has simply subdued the people, with something that isn’t even his own conscience anymore. Everyone is his flunky at his command. At that point, weather or not the leader and society are sharing a conscience, any failure in the society will reflect a failure on the leader’s control. Weather they know this or not. What he is doing could have been achieved with an even simpler, cheaper plan. If I were Trevor, I would have just cut the budget for education; keeping people stupid is probably even more effective if you want to control them easier. But what’s the use of a society of ignorant people? How well do they compete with other societies?

You’re right; it is a tradeoff. But I don’t think society is doomed. It will continue to ratify laws, revoke, rewrite and extend; it will continue to progress. People who want something else will go with other unhappy people and form another kind of government. Depending on weather that idea will work or not –who knows? Sure, communism hasn’t worked in the past, but that’s because no one has pulled it off correctly. Maybe the use of the custodian is what communism needs. But as for the needs of the people, they will slowly be reflected in our open-ended government system. Notice too that we have trials and we redefine bridges when it comes time to cross them. Our rights and laws are evolving as cloning and stem cell research come into play. We negotiate what is right and wrong as oppose to the system of rule where what is written is what is done, and anybody doing anything different will be killed. The issue is evolution versus revolution. Our government is evolving. Other governments have rules that last about as long as the ruler, and when someone else takes command, a revolutionary new way of living is defined. The United States has an evolving government, and I think we take that for granted. It’s not perfect, but it can easily be a lot worse. Things must be dynamic, things must be balanced. Even with our debate, if it were only you speaking, people very well might take it as truth. I bring to the table something different. And that makes us think some more. Am I right? No. Are you right? Sometimes. Yet we are both searching for truth, and through our discussion a better conclusion can be made. Perhaps by ourselves now. In the final analysis, humanity will be whatever we define it as, and this defines us as an individual, a society, a civilization of human beings.

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), November 11, 2001.

ÒTo return to a much earlier post in this thread, what makes men mad is that they do not obey social norms. Murderers and zealots are often considered mad, but they are just as often not if they have a socially acceptable reason for their actions. So is Trevor a mad man? Yes, if his mission fails and he is superceded by another opposing regime. No, if his mission is a success and his method becomes the norm. In defining society Trevor defines madness, and very few rulers would label themselves as mad.Ó -Logo

I must submit for the record that this struck a nerve when first I read it and I find this speculation on Logo's part uncannily penetrating. It affords a profound angle as to the inner psychic motivations which may plausibly be identified in this highly inscrutable, enigmatic individual's personality (Trevor Goodchild's, I mean to say). At least to me it does. Moreover it rings sympathetic and intuitive to the character. Profoundly so! I really mean it, and am very happy to have immediate and ready to hand so succinct , concise, and out-of-the-blue at-random example to have available should I ever have felt too generous in my praise for for the high level of mind I find engaged within the pages happening in this website.

-- dangerboy (artian@earthlink.net), November 12, 2001.

I apologize for ignoring this thread for so long cynical. We were both really getting into it, but my interest waned just briefly. Absence makes the heart grow fonder however, so I'll try to resume the flow of discussion. Since I think we have both forgotten what we were originally arguing about, I'll just go with the new point- counterpoint format we've adopted.

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I do not think that Trevor is dodging his own concience, but even if he were, so what? Weekness is human. I know I probably fool myself half the time (the other half of the time I am probably just unaware that I am fooling myself). I also object to your indignation on the grounds that I don't think a common conscience even exists to which Trevor should bring himself in line. Even if a common conscience did exist, I think more universal the conscience, the more totalitarian the sociopolitical climate, and so Trevor rebelling against a common conscience would in fact be an act of defiance against a previous totalitarian regime. All questions of right or wrong aside though, from a distance I kind of admire the drive and confidence that enables someone to change the world to suite them rather than the other way around. Don't quote me on that though.

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Wealth and Power. Wealth begets wealth and power begets power. In this instance the arrow of causation is non-unidirectional, but there is still a definite cause-effect relationship. You are hinting at a counterintuitive definition of power though which bears mentioning. I guess I tend to think of power in terms of tangibles like wealth and brute force, mainly because power begets these things and is maintained by these things. However, some would argue that ultimate power comes from freedom from such tangibles like wealth and wordly possessions and reliance on brute force. I don't know if I completely agree with this idea since it is impossible to discard all possessions, but I guess the willingness to do so is a formidable kind of power all in itself. The issue of power is hard to discuss becuase we are trying to define power in a vacuum. Power must have another component to it, i.e. the thing it creates or destroys, or the goal toward which it is being utilized. The question is always the power to do what?

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Free Will. I'm still not satisfied with your arguments. I still think that the restrictions that protect our freedoms minimize our free will. I may be arguing semantics here, but if a law restricts my actions, by making certain outcomes unfavorable to the point that I fail to view them as options, then I would call that a restriction of free will. This is not a bad thing - I rather enjoy living in a lawfull society - but it is a fact. I wonder where concience fits into this model. Does an active conscience restrict our free will, or does it define it? After all, conscience is really just self-imposed law. But does it shape the desire during its gestation, or restrict it after it has already taken shape?

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Power of the masses. Even election years don't necessarily mean our representatives are at our mercy. For God's sake just look at the presidential election. To quote David Duchovney from an episode of the X-Files "This is America...Just because you get the most votes doesn't mean you win."

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Rich and Poor. Good Lord, what a cluster fuck of misinformation. I have to say that I disagree with just about everything you say here. I understand that you want to believe the best, so do I, but the reality of the world just does not conform to the picture you paint. Sure, my world view is not always realized, but the world does lean toward this model. It leans this way quite a bit. Your tone changes here a bit which suggests I struck a nerve. If you come from a rich family there is no need to take offence. I am not saying that all rich people purposefully oppress the poor. It just so happens that wealth and power perpetuate themselves and those with wealth and power usually have an easier time of things where the law is concerned. This point hardly seems worth arguing because it is so obvious. And your comment about the poor and jails is so completely out of touch with reality that I can only assume that you are very very rich.

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Paying for order with free will. When I said "how can you say this" it was a rhetorical question of surprise at your apparent back pedaling. Throughout most of our discussion you argue that free will is absolute and then you completely change your position by saying that not only are we controlled, but that you welcome such limitations on your free will. If we agree, then why are we arguing? And for the record I don't think there is that much of a difference between the State and God. And most of human history would confirm my belief.

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Progress and Truth. Are progress and truth really the ultimate virtues? How can you determine "truth" if there is always a competing viewpoint no matter how much closer you get the phantasmagorical "truth"? And toward what are we progressing? Damned if I know. The virtues of truth and progress are philosphies that can be debated, not truths in and of themselves. I only bring up this point because you advocate a Hegelian sythesis of opposing ideogies for the sole purpose of achieving the ends of truth and progress. But if these ends are unatainable, what is the point of the struggle? The struggle has no point other than as a struggle. The goals of truth and progress are just fuel to fan the fires. They are a means to no end.

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Trevor. I understand your point perfectly. I think the reason power corrupts is because it eventually limits our ability to enjoy it. Just like a drug, we eventually adapt to our power and desire more. Power, for this example lets choose political power, is achieved through struggle. Through struggle we realize our own existence. It's a basic fact of life that in order for me to sustain my life, I must rob something else of its own. On a psychological level we use struggle with others to replenish our egos. However, power, as the end result of struggle, does away with the need for struggle and thus leaves us feeling empty. The only solution is try to attain more power, not for its own sake, but becuase it is the inevitable consequence of winning a struggle. We want power, but ultimately it is our worst enemy. What I am getting at is that Trevor has absolute power, or at least he will when his Custodian project is done. He then has two choices, continue the struggle by relinquishing some of his power, effectively playing a game with himself, or self- destruction. Society has the same choices, and the same struggles have been played out since the beginning of human history. I think if universal happiness through truth and progress were ever really achieved we'd all have to kill ourselves. Either that or start killing each other.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), November 16, 2001.

“I do not think that Trevor is dodging his own concience, but even if he were, so what?” –Logo

Ok, dodging/redefining: he is ultimately adjusting society to fit his agenda, his state of mind. For what reason? We shall soon discover:

“Weekness (sic.) is human. I know I probably fool myself half the time (the other half of the time I am probably just unaware that I am fooling myself). I also object to your indignation on the grounds that I don't think a common conscience even exists to which Trevor should bring himself in line.” -Logo

D00d, I never even said that the society was sharing a COMMON conscience. Before the custodian was individual conscience. Different beliefs align differently, common values are retained, opposing values are debated, the laws of society are changed accordingly. This is society. You’re denying common conscience? Does that not defeat the idea of society? You wouldn’t consider what Trevor was leading before, a society? That before the custodians they were just independent citizens? Even independent citizens align themselves with society. Even Monica: a society of independent agents, obey the same social norms. Have we not seen the same with the Breens? Perhaps Trevor is too non-typical to be a Breen. He wants to redefine the Breens to equal Trevor, meaning Trevor wants to destroy the power- hold over society that he already has. But we established that the custodian is not Trevor’s conscience, but an altered, anti-rebellion conscience. Chances are that the society has a common conscience – a part of the individual that follows society’s rules/the government’s laws. I think what you are arguing is that the public does not have a WORTHY common conscience worth winning (with respect through campaigning and social reform.) Throughout the episodes we see that Trevor is not pleasing the people though. And this is because the people themselves (I’m thinking Onan and Sybil here) are representations of the extreme. Should Trevor work to win those who wish to leave? No, not necessarily – he doesn’t HAVE to do anything. Instead, he focuses on the protected wall to keep people from escaping his society. He has imprisoned society. Are you saying a common conscience can’t form from this? Sure. It would seem believable –the public seems so robbed of choices that they must support the system or die. But isn’t that a common conscience too? A common conscience, or lack thereof? The fact that Trevor must ultimately change SOME kind of conscience suggests that they had one to begin with. But even Trevor said, “Providing a conscience for those who have none.” So maybe what Trevor acknowledges as the public’s need is really just a lack of conscience –that the people are trying to escape his society, but they don’t realize it’s wrong. Why does Trevor change society’s view to fit his view? They don’t see. Could he not also bring himself in line with the common conscience –by this I mean cater to the needs of the people, tear down the walls, make the people want to stay in Bregna rather than kill or deform those who try cross the border? The bottom line is that he should align himself with another kind of conscience that is sensitive to the public, but instead he chooses to rewire everyone’s mind –his attempt at absolute control.

“Even if a common conscience did exist, I think more universal the conscience, the more totalitarian the sociopolitical climate, and so Trevor rebelling against a common conscience would in fact be an act of defiance against a previous totalitarian regime.” -Logo

Totalitarianism is when a centralized government has infinite authority over how a member of society lives his or her life. The “previous totalitarian regime” is what Trevor has tried to accomplish in society – he isn’t rebelling against anything. Yes, he is an iconoclast. He is going against the common conscience – he even admits it, “I never did.” Meaning, “I never had a conscience with my fellow man.” Society isn’t totalitarian all by itself, and it doesn’t look like society has the totalitarian regime because they have done nothing to control Trevor. The more universal the conscience, the more totalitarian the sociopolitical climate is? No. The more universal the conscience, the more universal the conscience. If they act out, stick it to “the man,” restructure society THEN they are changing the “sociopolitical climate.” But by just sharing beliefs, that alone cannot lead to any kind of totalitarian anything. Notice that a society sharing beliefs can also spring forth the opposite of a totalitarian government: a republic with little centralization. Another post hoc. The rooster doesn’t make the sun rise; the sun doesn’t make the rooster crow. Notice too that the very thing that Trevor is trying to accomplish –a universal conscience for his society- is the opposite of defying totalitarianism. He is, in fact, supporting it; with himself as the central government.

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“Wealth and Power. Wealth begets wealth and power begets power. In this instance the arrow of causation is non-unidirectional, but there is still a definite cause-effect relationship.” -Logo

Huh? You just said that wealth begets wealth; power begets power. I’m not saying the two are mutually exclusive, I’m saying just because they may occur in sequence doesn’t mean they cause one another: ie you get money, you get power; conversely, you get power, you get money. Consequently, just because you have one doesn’t guarantee you the other. This is a post hoc. You just said that wealth begets wealth; power begets power –you just illustrated the lack of relation between the two ideas.

“You are hinting at a counterintuitive definition of power though which bears mentioning. I guess I tend to think of power in terms of tangibles like wealth and brute force, mainly because power begets these things and is maintained by these things.” –Logo

I didn’t hint at any kind of counterintuitive definition of power. I touched on single ideas. I stated that no person is powerful alone. I stated that a leader must have certain traits to attain support from the people. I stated that a powerful person must command someone, or there is no control and no power over that person. I also suggested that powerful person x ultimately relies on other people to carry out his will. It ultimately depends on how you define “power.” I don’t even think I defined it that well, so I’ll hold off on my claims until we come up with something better. For a while, we used “power is the influence one has over someone else” but power is too abstract an idea to be summed up in these few words. Under this definition, absolute power is self-defeating. Under a different definition, perhaps absolute power is something else altogether.

“However, some would argue that ultimate power comes from freedom from such tangibles like wealth and wordly (sic.) possessions and reliance on brute force. I don't know if I completely agree with this idea since it is impossible to discard all possessions, but I guess the willingness to do so is a formidable kind of power all in itself.” –Logo

This is some hardcore philosophy that can’t be hammered out with logic. Beliefs reflect our individuality, our identity, our persona – if there is such a thing. I respect these, so I won’t make any further comments on this statement.

“The issue of power is hard to discuss because (sic.) we are trying to define power in a vacuum. Power must have another component to it, i.e. the thing it creates or destroys, or the goal toward which it is being utilized. The question is always the power to do what?” –Logo

Yeah, so why are we still arguing it? =) I was just saying that power can be defined in different lights, that’s all. Power doesn’t ALWAYS depend on how much money and material resources a person may have. Power can exist in one man who takes it upon himself to change society, change the world. Are these different types of power – probably. Are you going to define power under all these different lights? Hopefully not. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll debate you on it; but it’s fuzzy as hell.

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“Free Will. I'm still not satisfied with your arguments. I still think that the restrictions that protect our freedoms minimize our free will. I may be arguing semantics here, but if a law restricts my actions, by making certain outcomes unfavorable to the point that I fail to view them as options, then I would call that a restriction of free will. This is not a bad thing - I rather enjoy living in a lawfull society - but it is a fact.” –Logo

I’m sorry you’re not satisfied with my argument. By reading your response, I think you might’ve misinterpreted what I was saying. I was saying that society creates consequences for certain actions, thus encouraging a certain type of behavior. But, not everyone fits this behavior, so obviously there are some that simply don’t care for these consequences. Another thing I didn’t describe too well is the fact that people can still do something that is “restricted” by society, which shows that free will can still take place. What you’re saying is that the definition of free will should be extended to include person x doing the “restricted” activity, expressing his free will, and he should not have to pay the consequence either. But if engaging in a “restricted” activity has no consequences, the activity can hardly be labeled as “restricted,” right? It’s allowed. If nothing is restricted, absolute free will can take place; everything is allowed. If everything is allowed, there are no rules/laws, there is no society. Forgive me –that’s inaccurate. Actually, what you have is a lawless society -anarchy. There is still a society though. Weather or not society x is productive or counter-productive depends on how much rights you’re willing to exchange for security. Like you said, it’s a trade-off, but in a different sense. The people and government are constantly negotiating over the price of freedom. As you already know, I fall into the category of people who are willing to exchange some of their freedom for some “old school law and order.” But I think you reading too much into my last post; since our freedom is already “restricted” in a sense, we don’t have free will all the time. When we do something against society, we are demonstrating free will. When we are acting in accordance with society, we are having our free will restricted, thus we have to settle for freedom of choice.

“I wonder where concience fits into this model. Does an active conscience restrict our free will, or does it define it? After all, conscience is really just self-imposed law. But does it shape the desire during its gestation, or restrict it after it has already taken shape?” –Logo

I think we pick and choose. We’re probably not even fully aware of it, but our conscience forms by simply observing the ramifications of our actions, noticing the consequences of other people’s actions. Of course, we adopt some morals from our parents, genetically and through instructing discipline. And there is very well a non- influenced conscience in our mind, not brain. Brain suggests function, but the mind implies the brain’s projection of itself as a cognitive system. Freud defined it as the superego. Other psychoanalysts defined it as the hierarchy of needs. Weather these are the conscience itself, or the building blocks for conscience –all this is up for grabs. We know that the conscience was evolved for the preservation of society. If we didn’t live in society, or better stated, if we didn’t have to deal with anyone but ourselves, theoretically we wouldn’t really need a conscience. We wouldn’t have insecurities –one wouldn’t think, “oh what will the neighbors think?” Conscience may change form when new information is presented. Our personal experiences, emotions, cognitive ability all help to define what is right or wrong for ourselves. The complexity arises when other individuals are introduced to the system and we must make a judgment call –a kind of critical decision- that requires us to weigh out human lives, or other intangible ideas. Yet our decision depends on how sensitive we are to data, information, numbers. For example, suppose you found a way to cure all the world’s diseases, however, in order to purge such diseases, it requires that you kill a newborn child. Obviously the answer to this question lies in your superego, your evolved society-preserver. How you answer this question depends on which direction your conscience leans more toward. New information will always offset an individual’s conscience. Let’s say the newborn child that must be sacrificed is your child. How many people die in a year from diseases? How many deaths will be prevented? How important a life will this newborn live? Conscience both restricts and allows in equal measure. By our own minds we can define it, while it defines us. And redefines us.

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“Power of the masses. Even election years don't necessarily mean our representatives are at our mercy. For God's sake just look at the presidential election. To quote David Duchovney from an episode of the X-Files ‘This is America...Just because you get the most votes doesn't mean you win.’” –Logo

But do you not agree that this is an even grander display that every vote matters? Implying some kind of importance that the role of the public has? This is an example of a flaw in the system, not so much the power of the masses. But moreover, politicians are still subject to law –ie impeachment, no president can serve more than 2 terms, etc. Even in overlooking this coin-toss case, the public will never be fully represented. Like I said before, a ruler can never adopt all of society’s views because there will be a point where he will be contradicting himself. But regarding “power of the masses” –isn’t that what campaigning is all about? Trying to gain the backing of the masses?

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“Rich and Poor. Good Lord, what a cluster fuck of misinformation. I have to say that I disagree with just about everything you say here.” –Logo

I’m sorry you disagree and think my points are just a “cluster fuck of misinformation.”

“I understand that you want to believe the best, so do I, but the reality of the world just does not conform to the picture you paint. Sure, my world view is not always realized, but the world does lean toward this model.” –Logo

Does it, now?

“It leans this way quite a bit. Your tone changes here a bit which suggests I struck a nerve. If you come from a rich family there is no need to take offence. I am not saying that all rich people purposefully oppress the poor. It just so happens that wealth and power perpetuate themselves and those with wealth and power usually have an easier time of things where the law is concerned. This point hardly seems worth arguing because it is so obvious. And your comment about the poor and jails is so completely out of touch with reality that I can only assume that you are very very rich.” –Logo

It didn’t strike a nerve, and I’m not all that rich; I’m a poor student at the moment. The “anger” in my argument comes from your need to make grand claims like this and offer no PROOF, no BACKING, no EVIDENCE, no EXAMPLES, no DATA, no ANALYSIS, and, above all, no EXPLAINATION to warrant these claims. G.W. Bush tried to do the same thing, “You’re either against terrorism, or you harbor terrorists.” This is bullshit. He drew a line in the sand and said you’re either on this side, or that side. And see what an idiot he looked like? So quickly his line was blurred because what about the nations that are against terrorism but don’t harbor terrorists? What about the nations that are against terrorism but don’t want to help the United States? What about the nations that are for terrorism but don’t harbor terrorists? There are too many cases, and the once solid line blurs – blends like a spectrum. His advisors later had to come in and use more diplomatic language and negotiate what Bush really meant. I’m not willing to play this game; you making claims and making me cite evidence to prove it wrong –the burden of proof is on you. All rich people get off easy, and the poor always get thrown in jail. The rich live with no fear, and the poor –just the opposite. This is an OVER- SIMPLIFICATION of the issue. Rich people not hiding from the law? Hiding behind their expensive lawyers? Poor people living in fear of being thrown in jails? Come now. I must be stupid, Logo. Why don’t you explain this to me? You’re hardly arguing the issue by saying, “this is so stupid; I can’t believe we’re arguing this.” Is it really so obvious? Not even you can explain the cases I mentioned. I challenged you to give me one example and you couldn’t even give me that. The obvious example would be the OJ Simpson case. But even this is so damn blurred because of the race issue, the DNA evidence issue, the weak prosecution issue, and all the other issues that were involved. You say the examples are out there –where? My answers are out of touch with reality? You assuming I’m rich –what does that have to do with anything? Have you seen some of the rundown ghettos out there –compared to an old ghetto, a new jail isn’t that bad. Stop attacking me and go for the issues. “Can you prove it’s right?” “No, but can you prove it’s wrong.” This kind of debate is bullshit. Maybe you should say something to make me believe that what I said was a “cluster fuck of misinformation.” Or maybe you can’t, which is why I got such a weak response out of you. By supporting that all the rich get off easy and all the poor get thrown in jail, you are perpetuating a generalization, a stereotype. And everyone knows that generalizations and stereotypes go hand in hand with blind sighted idiocy and, at its most extreme, racism.

----

“Paying for order with free will. When I said "how can you say this" it was a rhetorical question of surprise at your apparent back pedaling. Throughout most of our discussion you argue that free will is absolute and then you completely change your position by saying that not only are we controlled, but that you welcome such limitations on your free will.” –Logo

If that’s what you got out of my postings, you obviously construed something along the way. I was never arguing that free will is absolute. I said free will can be exercised, seeing as how we can do things against written law. This is what you said, and I’m arguing this:

“You argue for the sanctity of free will and the freedom of choice, and then you essentially say that you would hand it all over for a little law and order old school style. A central point of my argument has been that there is a shifting dynamic between law and order and free will. You can not have both.” –Logo

You can have free will, the amount of free will is determined by law. You can have both, just not equal portions of both. Yes, it’s a tradeoff. This is another statement I think you just blurted out and didn’t realize you said. Or perhaps you still believe it. In either case, this is the issue I was going after.

“If we agree, then why are we arguing? And for the record I don't think there is that much of a difference between the State and God. And most of human history would confirm my belief.” –Logo

Then perhaps you’d like to cite specific events in human history that proves this claim correct, because I’m not buying it. Human history can very will confirm my belief too, as well as every other belief under the sun.

----

“Progress and Truth. Are progress and truth really the ultimate virtues?” –Logo

I didn’t say they were the ultimate virtues. And I never said they were the only virtues.

“How can you determine ‘truth’ if there is always a competing viewpoint no matter how much closer you get the phantasmagorical (sic.) ‘truth’? And toward what are we progressing? Damned if I know. The virtues of truth and progress are philosphies (sic.) that can be debated, not truths in and of themselves.” –Logo

You totally missed everything that I was saying. There’s no other way for me to clarify it, so never mind. I was saying that none of what we say can be a clear representation of truth, but through discussing issue and further investigation we can come to a better conclusion. And this supports the idea that point needs counterpoint, Aeon needs Trevor, black needs white. It is difficult to define evil if there is no good. Similarly, it is difficult to spot inconsistent logic if there is no valid logic. If you believe that truth and progress are truths in and of themselves, you believe that there is a correct answer out there that human beings have failed to find. If you believe that neither can be defined, you reason that both are defined by society; and without differing views, an accurate model cannot be assessed.

“I only bring up this point because you advocate a Hegelian sythesis of opposing ideogies for the sole purpose of achieving the ends of truth and progress. But if these ends are unatainable, what is the point of the struggle? The struggle has no point other than as a struggle. The goals of truth and progress are just fuel to fan the fires. They are a means to no end.” –Logo

And continuing with my analogy, this argument has no end.

----

“Trevor. I understand your point perfectly. I think the reason power corrupts is because it eventually limits our ability to enjoy it. Just like a drug, we eventually adapt to our power and desire more. Power, for this example lets choose political power, is achieved through struggle. Through struggle we realize our own existence. It's a basic fact of life that in order for me to sustain my life, I must rob something else of its own. On a psychological level we use struggle with others to replenish our egos. However, power, as the end result of struggle, does away with the need for struggle and thus leaves us feeling empty. The only solution is try to attain more power, not for its own sake, but because (sic.) it is the inevitable consequence of winning a struggle. We want power, but ultimately it is our worst enemy. What I am getting at is that Trevor has absolute power, or at least he will when his Custodian project is done. He then has two choices, continue the struggle by relinquishing some of his power, effectively playing a game with himself, or self- destruction. Society has the same choices, and the same struggles have been played out since the beginning of human history. I think if universal happiness through truth and progress were ever really achieved we'd all have to kill ourselves. Either that or start killing each other.” -Logo

But universal happiness through truth and progress will never be achieved, so society lives on; we won’t kill ourselves, or each other. Perhaps this is the most perfect example of the cyclical expanse of civilization that will never terminate by its own hand. We’re trapped in this loop of existence, which is insured by its own guarantee that truth and existence will never be fully answered. Or another way to look at it is that truth, progress, and existence is inconsequential.

Notice too that Trevor wants to control Aeon, but he never wants to control her too much. This is also why I think Aeon was not implanted at the end of this episode: because absolute control just isn’t fun anymore.

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), November 17, 2001.

"The bottom line is that he should align himself with another kind of conscience that is sensitive to the public, but instead he chooses to rewire everyone’s mind –his attempt at absolute control." -cynical

One could also argue that this is an attempt to please everyone. We all know how you can't please all of the people all of the time. However, if they all have the same needs and desires, then you can please all of the people all of the time.

----

Totalitarianism and the common conscience. I think something similar to the law of entropy can be applied to society as well. I think unless there is some external force or pressure directing individuals toward a common conscience, then as a populace they will tend to develope very disparate modes of thinking. I probably shouldn't have used the word 'totalitarian' because it brings up images of big guns and leather boots and whatnot, but I needed a word that would create an image of absolute control. Absolute control can be achieved through nonviolent means, but I think that when, as a society, there is a common interest, or a common conscience, it is because an outside force has directed toward that course of developement. It will not happen spontaneously. Thus the more common the conscience, the more powerful this external pressure being exerted on society.

----

Power. So essentially we agree that we have misunderstood what the other was talking about. We were both arguing about power, just different kinds of power. Im the future I guess we just need to be highly specific when we are talking about power.

----

Free will and the law. "...society creates consequences for certain actions, thus encouraging a certain type of behavior." -cynical

This is coercion, plain and simple. The only difference between this type of coercion and, say, mafia coercion is that the law is considered legitimate coercion. What's interesting is if you substitute law for the mafia and then still try to tell me that there is no restriction on free will. If I don't pay my taxes I go to jail. If I don't pay my protection money I get my legs broken. There's not a whole lot of difference.

"If nothing is restricted, absolute free will can take place; everything is allowed. If everything is allowed, there are no rules/laws..." -cynical

So we are in agreement about the free will/law and order dynamic. Now suppose we have a society, like post Custodian Bregna, where a common conscience exists. Such a society would have no need for laws because crime would be non-existent. So is such a society the ultimate realization of individual freedom?

"When we do something against society, we are demonstrating free will." -cynical

This is a very interesting idea (which I dealt with in my last post). Self-realization through rebellion against society. Every mopy teen has a potential revolutionary inside them.

----

Power of the masses. Obviously the system has the appearance of fairness, and in truth the founding fathers designed it to be as fair as possible. But the people working within the system will always try to exploit it's weaknesses to their benefit, which is usually to other people's detriment. When I look at politicians I usually can't shake the feeling that to them the public is just a speedbump they need to slow down for on the way to their main objective. In most cases they serve the people only as much as is absolutely necessary to stay in power. They will try to undermine the system and bend the rules as much as they can to stay in power. I think this is just human nature, and the founding fathers thought so too which is why they built so many checks and balances into the system. But while politicians may be limited within the government, they can still use their political influence to bend and even break the laws that people with less influence have to obey if they do not wish to pay the consequences.

----

Rich and Poor. I never categorically said that all rich people are oppressors and all poor people are oppressed. The system just has a tendency to keep the rich rich and the poor poor. And this tendency is so obvious that I can't imagine anyone not seeing it. I mean, what's the point of having wealth and power if you can't use it to get yourself out of trouble when you need to. I'm not saying this right, but it is a fact and it is perfectly understandable. The poor simply do not have such a recourse and so the law is usually more harsh on them.

You've heard of getting your foot in the door right? Like when you're looking for a job. Well if you are wealthy, you are born with your foot in the door. This does not mean you will automatically get the job, it just means you have a huge advantage over others and so you are probably going to get that job. The poor have no such advantage and so they actually have to work to get their foot in the door. Again, though, I am not making any moral judgements about this relationship. I am simply stating the facts. Morality becomes involved when you start commenting on the rightness or wrongness of this relationship, which I have not done. If it seems like I'm attacking you maybe it's because you're hearing something you don't want to hear (although I find it hard to believe you have not heard it before). And if you're going to quote Chris Rock, at least give him the credit.

----

God and the State. In virtually every empire the world has ever known the political leader has also been the religious leader. There are exceptions, but they are very rare. In Rome the emperor was often deified (during his life he was often worshiped as a god by other "lesser" cultures). In Egypt the Pharaoh was considered to be a God from birth. In the ancient South and Central American empires the priestly class was second only to the king, and in many cases the kings were the priests. In the Middle Ages the Catholic church had more political power than any king and had no qualms about using that power to exert its influence over Europes royal families. Even today there are plenty of cultures that still maintain that association between church and state. The Taliban in Afghanistan for instance. In Japan the emperor's lineage is considered to be an unbroken line to a God. There is an endless stream of examples limited only by my knowledge of world history. Even in America we have "In God WE Trust" on all of our money. If anything money is the antithesis of God. It's filthy lucre, the physical embodiment of all that't wrong with the world. You can choose to make a distinction between religion and spirituality (and in that sense, yes God and State are often distinct, but still not most of the time), but as far as God as the central hub of a religion is concerned, he is more often than not identified as being the central hub of the state as well.

----

Truth/Progres, Existence. Well we finally agree on something. However...

"But universal happiness through truth and progress will never be achieved, so society lives on; we won’t kill ourselves, or each other." -cynical

We are already killing each other, and I guess we have a need to kill each other as a means of reafirming our own existence.

Peace

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), November 17, 2001.

Response will be delayed invariably, Logo. Sorry -comp sci projects, and a term paper on mind-brain identity theory will be due pretty soon. Hope you guys had a nice Thanksgiving!! =)

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), November 28, 2001.

Sounds like some pretty hardcore shit. Good luck with all of that.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), November 28, 2001.

Should be expecting a lengthy response from me, Logo. It'll be posted in a couple days. Still thinking about what more needs to be said. Also trying recover from mind-brain identity theory and the glass arena of human nature at the moment. Thanks for not stacking more args against my case while I was away... ;)

Oh, and there's a cool Q3 skin of AF: It's SWEET!!!! I'll post the linkage on a new thread.

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), December 11, 2001.

What's mind-brain identity theory and the glass arena of human nature? It sounds interesting.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), December 11, 2001.

Sorry this is so late and lengthy. Tried to bottom-line it, but the issues were so huge. So here goes... One could also argue that this is an attempt to please everyone. We all know how you can't please all of the people all of the time. However, if they all have the same needs and desires, then you can please all of the people all of the time. This is true, but as I stated earlier: At what cost? By the time society is rewired, Trevor is only pleasing himself –because at that point he has already refined society into a more united force. But Trevor is not pleasing anyone. No one can claim that they are pleasing anyone for this reason: to please someone means that one’s actions are satisfying another’s wish(es). Trevor is not pleasing them; he is pleasing the people he has transformed. Pleasing a single person, or a society of people, involves acknowledging and acting out the public/the individual’s needs and desires. In this case, he is not doing so –he is rewriting society, dictating the roles of society, as well as what the needs and desires of the people should be –instead of what they are. “Pleasing” would involve Trevor satisfying society’s wishes, but he hasn’t satisfied their wishes –he has simply swapped society’s wishes with his own. We have gone over the philosophy of the custodian. What is interesting is that Trevor couldn’t use his own conscience to alter society; doing so would place Trevor into a very competitive society where everyone would be fighting for that spot at the top. Instead, the custodian was wired to stop criminals like Bambara and to prevent revolutionaries from overthrowing the government. The people in the audience –were they implanted with custodians? It is implied because of the way they make decisions on the moral game show. However, what if they are not implanted? What if Trevor drew that line and promised himself to never implant regular people with custodians? Not likely. Who is to say enough is enough? Who draws that line? Trevor does. So it’s fair game to say that he has implanted society/will eventually implant society. But to say that he pleases all of the people all of the time is assuming that these people wanted to be implanted with custodians and that, by their own free will, they volunteered to be Trevor’s conscience bearers. Yet even if they did come to this agreement, they were still deceived because it wasn’t Trevor’s conscience, it was a weaker- Trevor conscience – a “typical Breen” program that he coded them with. Has he given them a vision, ambition? Has he empowered them at all, or has he merely made them even more dependent on him, more dependent on the system? In my mind, since Trevor has selfishly substituted the public’s needs with his, if he is pleasing anyone –it has to be himself and no one else, even if, on the surface level, people are too brainwashed to realize that they are being ruthlessly controlled. * * * I think something similar to the law of entropy can be applied to society as well. I think unless there is some external force or pressure directing individuals toward a common conscience, then as a populace they will tend to develope very disparate modes of thinking. This assumes that all people think enough in the same way that this so called "external pressure" will change them. By your own admission, people think in different ways. How many times in history have we seen people get "pressured" yet not yield because they think a different way. Gandhi refused to use violence despite most of his follower’s wishes to use violence. How about Copernicus, or Galileo, who did not believe in the heliocentric view despite the pressures of society (granted Copernicus did not publish his book until he died and Galileo eventually refuted his claim under pressure in prison). But the point isn't that they refuted their theory (and did they really?? in his journals, Galileo still stuck to his Heliocentric view), but that the pressure existed before they came around, before they developed their theories, society’s pressures dictated the geocentric view, yet with those pressures, they developed a heliocentric view. Thus, does it not stand that the actual rules that govern people are not societal rules, but empirical truth? I probably shouldn't have used the word 'totalitarian' because it brings up images of big guns and leather boots and whatnot, but I needed a word that would create an image of absolute control. Absolute control can be achieved through nonviolent means, but I think that when, as a society, there is a common interest, or a common conscience, it is because an outside force has directed toward that course of developement. It will not happen spontaneously. Thus the more common the conscience, the more powerful this external pressure being exerted on society. Who is to say that a common conscience, minus the external force is not already a developed society? This external force that you talk about cannot be so “external” because if it is to direct the course of society, should it not also reflect the people’s common interest? It isn’t so external then, is it? Perhaps what you meant to say was that there needs to be an unbiased governing entity to enforce laws –but alas, this too is carried out by the work of the very people who choose to protect common interest. Maybe this is why societies are so f***ed up –because every governing force is not only a component of society, but evolved for society’s own preservation. Everyone participating in the law passing process isn’t very practical, which is why we have representative government. When they request a consensus, they sum up the laws in a tidy little pamphlet to see everyone’s position. But sometimes the common people are not qualified to make an intelligent decision on passing or vetoing a certain bill. And sometimes intelligence isn’t even the issue; it’s just the sheer time. People want to get on with their lives –they don’t want to spend hours deciding on bills that won’t even substantially affect their lives. So they pray that their representative has a better understanding of the inner workings of the bill. Yet most of what the president does is pass or veto bills. True, the president can write a bill, but it still has to pass through the House of Representatives and Senate. Both the Senate, the House, the President, VP, Secretary, etc. belong to a body that directs the development of society, yet they are not so external, are they? Are you implying that the external pressure is something less concrete, and more untouchable? Like a God who is unmoving and unbiased, or perhaps the rules of nature that are absolute and cannot be re-written? * * * ...society creates consequences for certain actions, thus encouraging a certain type of behavior. This is coercion, plain and simple. The only difference between this type of coercion and, say, mafia coercion is that the law is considered legitimate coercion. What's interesting is if you substitute law for the mafia and then still try to tell me that there is no restriction on free will. If I don't pay my taxes I go to jail. If I don't pay my protection money I get my legs broken. There's not a whole lot of difference. Ah, but there is a difference, a key difference. "Laws" are commonly accepted as necessary, and for better or for worse, are accepted as right, or at least a fact of life. Mafia laws aren't. In society: sure you have a few guys here and there who wander around ranting about the unconstitutionality of taxes, but overall, most simply accept it as a fact of life; no taxes means bankrupt government, which means a poor nation. Now suppose we have a society, like post Custodian Bregna, where a common conscience exists. Such a society would have no need for laws because crime would be non-existent. So is such a society the ultimate realization of individual freedom? But did you not argue above that a society without external pressure would deviate and not have common interest?? So for this society there would have to be external pressure. But is that external pressure not a contradiction to the concept of "the ultimate realization of individual freedom?? * * * But while politicians may be limited within the government, they can still use their political influence to bend and even break the laws that people with less influence have to obey if they do not wish to pay the consequences. Like what/when? * * * I mean, what's the point of having wealth and power if you can't use it to get yourself out of trouble when you need to. I'm not saying this right, but it is a fact and it is perfectly understandable. The poor simply do not have such a recourse and so the law is usually more harsh on them. Okay Logo, instead of me debating you on politically correctness, I’ll grant you the rich get richer, poor get poorer –never mind the stereotype this perpetuate. That granted, so what? Does this mean rich people have a tendency of being evil? Or that money is the root of evil? That the poor can’t afford to be evil? And if you're going to quote Chris Rock, at least give him the credit. Works Cited
Rock, Chris. Roll With the New. Track 6, Tossed Salad. * * * In virtually every empire the world has ever known the political leader has also been the religious leader. There are exceptions, but they are very rare. In Rome the emperor was often deified (during his life he was often worshiped as a god by other "lesser" cultures). In Rome, Caesar was not the religious leader. In fact, in various holy empires the ruler was not the religious leader; that was still the pope. In Egypt the Pharaoh was considered to be a God from birth. No, the Pharaohs ascended to godhood. Thus to piss of the Pharaoh was to piss off a future god; however, they were not gods from birth –they were men who would become gods. In the Middle Ages the Catholic church had more political power than any king and had no qualms about using that power to exert its influence over Europes royal families. Not really, look at that period of four popes. Look at the anti-popes. Look at the King of England -he took the mantle of religious leader himself, but still it proves he throws off the leadership of the church. The leadership of the church was directly linked to the strength of the ruler you are referring to. The stronger rulers of Europe did many things that took them out of line with religious leadership, but the church did little to stop them. God and state one is iffy. It was a common tool used by rulers. However, there are many cases where the ruler was not the religious leader; but there was still a separate religious leader. The Taliban in Afghanistan for instance. The Taliban is not the religious leader in Afghanistan; they are a religious militia. For religious purposes they still have a council of high-ranked Islamic clerics who are the real Islamic religious leaders. Just like Iran's clerics are not the rulers, they have a head of state and a head of church. In Japan the emperor's lineage is considered to be an unbroken line to a God. There is an endless stream of examples limited only by my knowledge of world history. Japan’s emperor’s lineage is a line to both gods actually (the original ones, Air and Sea, I believe). However, the emperor, during WW2, renounced this claim. Even in America we have ‘In God WE Trust’ on all of our money. If anything money is the antithesis of God. It's filthy lucre, the physical embodiment of all that't wrong with the world. In America we have "In God we trust" on all of our money. How exactly does this relate to the rulers? Do we have a dollar bill as head of state?? You can choose to make a distinction between religion and spirituality (and in that sense, yes God and State are often distinct, but still not most of the time), but as far as God as the central hub of a religion is concerned, he is more often than not identified as being the central hub of the state as well. There was that concept of God as the ultimate law, but it was more of a metaphysical sense. Like I said, this really depended on the strength of the ruler. Many times in history, including the cultures you mentioned, if the ruler was strong enough - and there were more than a few- that ruler could quite simply throw off the leadership of the church without too many worries. Possibly even create a new religion altogether that allows divorce, for example. * * * We are already killing each other, and I guess we have a need to kill each other as a means of reafirming our own existence. From where did this need sprout? I believe it was Einstein put it more seriously when he said, “All our lauded technological progress –our very civilization- is like the ax in the hand of a pathological criminal.” * * * And some background on issues that you thought sounded interesting: Many people believe that the mind and brain are one. The mind is what the brain thinks of itself. But the other side of the coin is that the mind is a projection of the brain; where the brain is hardware, the mind and soul represent software. How separate are the two? Depends on how you define your own personal reality. Thus is the first principal of mind-brain identity theory. Somewhere between mind and brain we come to meet in the middle. For example, both of your eyes show a representation of reality. They are both showing the same environment, but from different views (close one eye, then close the other eye and keep the other open.) Now open both eyes. You get a merging of the two views. This is binocular vision. The two views create the mind’s eye and this is what we “see.” Mind-brain identity theory also states that our brain is more than the sum of its parts. Which is why we tend to define ourselves in terms of higher-order processes. For example, “My name is Joshua and I’m a computer science major.” As oppose to, “My name is Joshua, and I’m a vehicle for a three-pound mass of folded gray tissue.” Or something of the sort. Human nature in a glass arena is a philosophy that compares individual conscience to a glass arena –it exists, but its boundaries can only be defined when it is bumped into or broken. Suggesting that there are no “hard” lines or fuzzy lines that separate moral grounds, but an invisible arena that surrounds the individual. When we “act” in the subjective world we see the world for what it is –during the day we do what is good for society, we act as society wants us to, but we remain unchanged within the arena. When night falls, we see our reflection in the glass superimposed on reality, which makes it hard to see. For the most part (according to the books), morality is experienced first-hand, and that is why an enemy of the state, no matter how brutal and evil, will be nursed by the enemy (if he is wounded) –not by ignorance, but by humanity; that which is contained and untouched within the arena. It’s so much more complicated than that, but that’s the down-and-dirty shotgun answer.

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), December 17, 2001.

You two guys are

-- dangerboy (artian@earthlink.net), December 18, 2001.

An individual is not a "unit" of society. What we call society is the result of individuals acting in a certain manner. People strive to attain their ends. They realize that they will do better by cooperating with each other to take advantage of increased productivity of the division of labor.

See this guy for more on this.

A good moral code is that which impels individuals to take part in such cooperation, rather than compromise it.

See this other guy for more.

Free will manifests itself when an individual chooses his ends and the means to attain them. If the custodian makes it impossible for an implanted person to choose certain ends or means, that person's free will is to that extent diminished. "Clockwork Orange" deals with a similar problem. Is it worth taking away free will (not freedom, see below) in order to prevent anti-social behavior? (No, in my view.)

There are two useful definitions of freedom. One is freedom from being punished for behavior that does not harm social cooperation. Taxes for the purposes of maintaining the machinery of state dedicated exclusively to protection of life, liberty, etc. do not limit anyone's freedom any more than the nature of this world already does. We cannot enjoy the blessings of social cooperation and at the same time be indulging our animal instincts of aggression and destruction. The other definition has to do with self-control. A man is free if his actions meet his approval; if during even his most passionate and stressful moments he is able to stand back and take into account his normal valuations. E.g., let's say I get so angry that I want to kill someone and do not at that moment dread the consequences. An unfree man will act on his desire. A free man will realize that under normal circumstances his preferences would be different; that when he cools off he will regret acting in this manner, and will stop. (If he is smart, he will try to ensure that in a situation like this he has enough help to supplement his diminished self-control.)

The concept of "power" becomes much less interesting once it is realized how impotent the state is in those things that actually matter. At best it can protect social cooperation from being undermined by private gangsters. Usually, the state will wreck society to the extent that no Mafia could ever conceive.

As for the rich and poor, below is a quote attributed to Will Durant (supposedly in his book The Lessons of History, but I couldn't find it there):

"Forced to choose, the poor, like the rich, love money more than political liberty; and the only political freedom capable of enduring is one that is so pruned as to keep the rich from denuding the poor by ability or subtlety and the poor from robbing the rich by violence or votes."

-- Eternal Triangle (hol7tt@yahoo.com), December 21, 2001.

I'll comment on Logo's surreal post that includes the phrase "It's a basic fact of life that in order for me to sustain my life, I must rob something else of its own." You are quite mad, do you realize that? :) If you want to sustain your life, all you have to do is get a job. At worst you can beg for alms. How many people have you robbed so far, anyway?

Power corrupts not because it "eventually limits our ability to enjoy it," but because it gives you delusions of grandeur; it makes you forget that you a man like any other and must follow the same moral code as anyone else. Political power lets you rob people of their possessions and their very lives; it encourages you to treat them as means to your own ends, as beasts of burden or cannon fodder. Historians will glorify you if you commit mass murder or mass theft; their criteria for "greatness" is starting wars and enslaving free men.

The pleasure one may derive from acting in a way that destroys social cooperation can be real and intense, simply because one no longer feels bound by any rules. A criminal or tyrant then believe that freedom is never having to say you are sorry. But even they recognize the enjoy the enormous benefits of social cooperation; they do not want everyone else to renounce it and bring about a war of all against all. The sacrifices that we make by restraining ourselves are well-compensated by the benefits by living in society.

Men who exercise tyrannical power, unless they are complete sociopaths, can never be happy. They realize in their subconscious that they are a terrible burden upon the rest of mankind, and that their very existence is a mistake.

The idea of universal happiness makes sense only if we take the word "happiness" to mean what it normally means, e.g. "I'm happy because I am in good health, I love my job and my family, and I look forward to the future." If every individual felt like this, he would be as far away from committing suicide as he could possibly be. If by universal happiness you mean a state of affairs where we no longer act, i.e. choose our ends and means, because we are completely satisfied, then well... not only is such a thing impossible, but I can't even imagine what it is like to exist this way. You may have to consult Buddhist mystics and explore the concept of Nirvana.

-- Eternal Triangle (hol7tt@yahoo.com), December 21, 2001.

"In this case, he is not doing so –he is rewriting society, dictating the roles of society, as well as what the needs and desires of the people should be –instead of what they are."

I would agree that Trevor has changed the society's desires in order to conform to his vision, but that is what all leaders do. Kings, popes, presidents, even parents (in respect to their children as society), all try to alter society to conform to their will. The only difference is that they do not have the means that Trevor has. And furthermore, it is not as if people are born with a will that never changes. Our desires are in constant flux, especially in the media saturated, consumerist culture Americans live in today. Where do you draw the line between cultural influence and brainwashing, and why do you choose to draw it there? And why do you place so much emphasis on a person's prior state of mind? We live in the ever changing present and it is our present ideas, thoughts, opinions, and desires that carry the most importance. Regardless of the Breens' past state of mind, whatever they desire in the present is in fact their desire regardless of how that state was acheived. You also mention how Trevor's influence removes the competitiveness from society. I would argue that perpetuating itself is one of the main functions of power. It certainly doesn't make any sense to have the power to make things easier for yourself and not use it. All rulers use at least some of their power in this way. Often times it is not even purposeful. To succeed in your ends means to partially make things easier for yourself. The more successes, the easier things get because you are slowly transformer your reality to conform to your vision of how things should be. This is self-evident.

"Has he given them a vision, ambition? Has he empowered them at all, or has he merely made them even more dependent on him, more dependent on the system?"

This is a very difficult issue not least because of the semantics. If Trevor were to give the people a vision and ambition, wouldn't they still be falling prey to his influence? How could he create a unified vision thorughout his society without you accusing him of brainwashing people? Such a feat would naturally involve changing people's will, and the end result would be the same as that achieved by the Custodian. The second issue here is one of empowerment and dependence. I think it is hard to distinguish the two in the end. The more empowered a nation becomes the more dependent the people become on its rulers. Think of the Third Reich. Here was a society that took the principals of a common ethos to its ultimate end and in the process created the most feared military industrial society the world has ever seen. And yet the people were drones to Hitler's queen. Hitler gave them a vision and ambition and in doing so he empowered them as a nation, but as individuals they were unimportant. They simply could not function without the leadership of the furor. The government can not give the people anything without them ultimately comming to depend on the government for that service. So how do you go about empowering a nation without getting them further mired in dependence on the system?

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), December 25, 2001.

"Does it not stand that the actual rules that govern people are not societal rules, but empirical truth?"

Empirical truth is a falsehood. You have to realize the every successive era possesses "the truth" about the world. And that truth is invariably modified or completely altered by the next generation. And that's to say nothing of the many competing truths out there. here in the 21 century we recognized just how little we know about the universe; there are many competing theories about the nature of reality, but generally speaking there is one model that most people accept as truth despite the knowledge that there are many competing models. So we accept, very reality in fact, that our reality, our empirical truths are subject to change. What's truly remarkable is how often they change and how easily we accept the new truths and discard the old. But this is getting off topic. Going back to the issue of society, it becomes clear that all "truths" are filtered through societal rules and have a social function. It's true that societies often struggle to accept some truths, but the fact that they are accepted means that they were ready to be accepted. It's kind of a post hoc scenario that's self-fulfilling. In your example, Europe still maintained a geocentric view long after Galileo died, and long after Europe accepted that view there were still millions of people elsewhere that still maintaine the geocentric view. The new truth could only be accepted once certian conditions in the society had been met (and what those conditions are I have no idea). Sometimes it's just a matter of killing everbody who disagrees with the dominant view (the irony of Jesus' martyrdom and the Catholic church's purges is delicious), but generelly speaking there has to be some kind of concensus. The "facts" are tools or arguments used to gain consensus.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), December 25, 2001.

By external pressure I did NOT mean government. Government is formed in response to external pressure and is a central component of the society. What I meant was any force, positive or negative, not considered to be part of society. Now this definition is problematic for a lot of reasons, I know, but bear with with me. Example: The American revolution. The government in place prior to the revolution was that of a foreign power (Brittain) with very little common interest with the colonies. Certian pressures exerted by Brittain made revolution a viable course of political action and in so doing the colonists exerted their own counterpressure in defence of a way of life that they agreed upon. The Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of independence were all expressoins of that common will made all the more powerful by Brittian's unfair exploitation. In the absence of such a threat, it is unlikely that the colonists would have ever united to such a degree that they would be able to put the American sensibility into such elegant words. Example: Environment. It is often the case that nature provides such a threat to survival that the society becomes more homogeneous in response to this non-human threat. In harshest regions of the world, the ones subject to extreme heat, cold, floods, earthquakes, etc, the cultures are often very inclusive and completely reject foreign influences and ideas. Example: War. It is a basic fact that a country at war with a major threat of an enemy is more at peace with itself. During times of war suicide rates drop 50%, and people generally think better of their fellow countrymen than anyone else. A good enemy is a boon for galvanizing the common will and every politician knows this. Example: Religion. Sometimes I think religion is more trouble than it is worth, but it is responsible for a lot of good as well. Certain beliefs can have a powerfull effect on a populace and create a means of expressing a common will that did not exist before.

I kind of cheat with this model because no pressure is completely external. The pressure is always an integral component of the society, but eventually the pressure becomes too much to bear and there is a schism which creates the concept of the external group/threat and the in group. And the process is a never ending one with billions of variations ranging from the smallest court battles to full scale revolt. It usually takes an incredible amount of pressure though, to unify/create the common interest to the point where people agree to lay down there lives fir each other.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), December 25, 2001.

I think you are right that most people simply accept certain laws as a fact of life, but that does not mean that those laws are right or just. I think we accept it out of a sense of impotence in the face of the vast political machine. We can try, but most who try fail, and it takes a lot of time and effort to take on the system, time and effort that a lot of people simply can't spare. And the law works very similary to the mafia. The law is more lenient on those working for the law, i.e. police, judges, politicians, etc. And if those working for the law are assaulted in some way, the law comes down extra hard on the perpetrator, the reason being that all law is backed by pure physical force and a sense of fear and awe must be maintained. Just think about it, if you walk up to me and punch me in the fact for no reason, I can't just shoot you in the head. But try to get within ten feet of the president uninvited and see what happens. Actually the legal organization (synidicate if you will) is so well organized that if I were to write threatening remarks about the president in this post I would probably be paid a visit within a few hours. I know of cases where this has happened. The mafia Dons have their thugs, and the president has the CIA. Just like the mafia, the government is in business for itself. No taxes mean no government, not protection money means no mafia. Where they differ is that because of the way the government is organized, the governement's best interest is satisfied through the common interest.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), December 25, 2001.

Me: "So is such a society the ultimate realization of individual freedom?" cynical: "But did you not argue above that a society without external pressure would deviate and not have common interest?? So for this society there would have to be external pressure. But is that external pressure not a contradiction to the concept of "the ultimate realization of individual freedom??"

The external pressure would be maintained at a constant rate by the custodians so there wouldn't be any social hiccups. But as for the larger issue of the ultimate realization of human freedom, you are right. There is a huge contradiction, which is why I phrased my response in the form of a question. If you remember, we began this discussion with me kind of arguing against the notion of free will. Is free will an illusion? It seems that you can either have completel freedom with no will, or your entire will with very little actual freedom because of all the competition, the exception being the man or woman at the top.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), December 25, 2001.

Hey cynical how do you change the color of your text? It seems a bit pretentious in other threads, but it actually makes things easier here.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), December 25, 2001.

I’ll grant you the rich get richer, poor get poorer –never mind the stereotype this perpetuate. That granted, so what? Does this mean rich people have a tendency of being evil? Or that money is the root of evil? That the poor can’t afford to be evil?

When did I ever mention the word evil? An underlying theme of all of my posts has been the issue of moral relativism which denies the very existence of good and evil. That being said, I repeat that the issue of is one of power, which can take many forms, one of which is money. The poor have power, it's just not financial power. And since financial power is so important in a capitalist country, the rich naturally have more power over the poor. The poor have power over the dirt poor, and the dirt poor have the homeless to kick around.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), December 25, 2001.

Religious leaders vs. political leaders.

Maybe I shouldn't have said the religious leader and political leader are always the same person, but the two always complement each other.

In Rome Caesar was worshipped as a God after his death. In fact all subsequent emperors (whom, it was kind of assumed would assend to Godhood) were referred to as Caesar, further cementing the relationship between politics and religion.

If the egyptian pharoahs were men who would inevitably become Gods, and they were treated like Gods, them for all practical purposes they are Gods.

The fact that Henry VIII denied the catholic church only to establish himself as the head of the church of England only proves my point. He couldn't just be king, he needed to create a whole new church to legitimize his claim to the throne.

I don't know too much about the Taliban, but I would guess that the Islamic clerics are just figureheads apointed by the Taliban. Establishing figureheads is always safer than wearing two caps at once.

Japan's history goes back thousands of years. The fact the Hirohito, and emperor of the modern era, renounced his claim to divinity (and I'm taking your word on this) is irrelevant when stalked against the thousands of emperors that have come before him.

The reason I brought up "In God We Trust" is just to point out that the issue of divine right seems to back a lot of claims to power, and that even in the modern era we can't seem to get away from some connection between church and state even when it is completely inapropriate and incongruous.

"If the ruler was strong enough - and there were more than a few- that ruler could quite simply throw off the leadership of the church without too many worries. Possibly even create a new religion altogether that allows divorce."

This is a key point, "if the ruler was strong enough." Religion was a major source of his claim to power, and in order to cast off the religion, the ruler needed an immense amount of power from somewhere else. As you point out though, the easiest thing to do was simply create another religion with himself as the head. That way he gets the benefit of the divine right of kings without the cost of having to deal with papal interference.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), December 25, 2001.

Hi Eternal Triangle. It's nice to get a new perspective in here.

The problem I have with your definition of free will is that there is always something preventing us from choosing a certain course of action. In "A Clockwork Orange" Alex is conditioned to the point where anti-social behavior becomes physically abhorrent to him. For us in the real world, our consciences induce physical discomfort as well, although not as extreme. When caught in a moral quandry we can expect to get hotter, start to sweat, shake, and even get nauseous. But Trevor's Custodians, as far as we know, do not induce physical discomfort. We actually do not know how they work; we just know that those implanted walk around in a kind of perpetual bliss of inanity.

The other reason I object to your definition is because we are all conditioned. We are not born with a moral code. Not only are babies ammoral, they are extremely selfish. We are taught morality through physical and emotional conditioning both positive and negative, although generally speaking our conditioning is negative. We are taught don't do this or something bad will happen, thus implying that the only reason not to do it is to spare ourselves some pain. Of course that means if we don't feel any pain there is no reason not to do it. We are also rewarded for doing something good which suggests there is no reason to do it if there is no reward at stake.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), December 25, 2001.

Eternal Triangle: "A man is free if his actions meet his approval."

Wow, I've never really thought of freedom in that way before. But if one lacks the will to resist his baser desires and instincts then can we see he is being liberated if that will is provided for him. Trevor says he provides a conscience for those who have none. And I think if we use this definition of freedom then Trevor seems like a real humanitarian. He starts with the basic premise that all people want to be good, it's just that some lack the will to do so, and so he provides the help they need to free themselves from themselves. Personally I think Trevor's agenda is completely self-serving, but you can see where I am comming from.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), December 26, 2001.

Eternal Triangle: "At best it (the state) can protect social cooperation from being undermined by private gangsters."

I think the concept of power is so interesting because it is always relevent. Men may possess power, but long after those men are dead and gone, the relationships between nodes of power will remain. Sometimes there will be a vacuum, but more often than not new person will simply occupy the old position right away and the basic relationships among intities will continue. When you say the state can protect social cooperation from being undermined by gangsters, you are only partially right. The state protects its own interests which, because of the way our government was created, is dependent on the people's interests. The gangsters themselves represent a highly organized form of social cooperation. They would have to in order to even be considered a threat by such a vast monopolistic intity as the state. However, the state renders that form of organization illegitimate because it conflicts with the state's own interests (the people's). In truth, any criminal organization is a business like any other. It has leaders, workers, and a pay role. It has to consider cost/benefit analyses, and it has competition. If you think of the British East India company, they were a legitimate trading business, but they were also a legitimate mafia in India where the British governemnt gave them backing in order help colonize the sub continent. My point is that if the structurally there is very little difference between state and mafia, and the power they weild is almost identical. All their policies must be backed by force. The two even have similar agendas, namely self preservation through the ellimination of competition and monopolization. The difference is in how those ends are acheived. The government us bound by the very laws it created and enforces to acheive its ends through serving the people (usually this means doing the bear minimum to get reelected). The mafia has no such restrictions which puts the at direct odds with the state.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), December 26, 2001.

"It's a basic fact of life that in order for me to sustain my life, I must rob something else of its own."

This is exactly right. All living things on this planet survive by incorporating the flesh of some other living thing to some degree. When you get hungry you must satisfy your hunger with something that is either directly the dead body of something else, or that contains elements of the dead body of something else. This is true even if you are a vegetarian. Even plants absorb nutrients from the soil that is only there because other plants died and enriched the soil with their decaying matter. This is one of the major problems with deforestation. Loggers cut down vast swaths of forest and since the wood is removed and used for man-made objects the soil can not replenish itself and it eventually becomes incapable of supporting more life. And your suggestion for me to get a job is just as relevant. Forgeting for a moment that I still have to pay for food with the money I earn, food that at one point was alive, or contains the elements of once living things, the job market itself is a highly competive environment not unlike the jungle. There is not an equal number of jobs to go around which means that whatever job I get I have deprived someone else of a job. And since we all need jobs to make money to buy food to live, you could say that my state of employment has, to some degree, deprived someone else of thier ability to live. Even if I become a begger, every alm that's given to me is an alm that will not be given to one of my fellow beggers. If you actually thought I meant killing people and consuming their flesh fresh of the bone then you are a real numbnuts.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), December 26, 2001.

The only difference is that they do not have the means that Trevor has. And furthermore, it is not as if people are born with a will that never changes. If that is the only difference between Presidents, Popes, Kings, Parents and Trevor, then you live in a very warped world. First of all, Popes –and other religious heads- do not have the means as Trevor does, true, but they wouldn’t have it even if they had a choice. Even back in the day when there was corruption wholesale of the Catholic church. The church told you what you needed to do to get into heaven; if not killing your neighbor was too much for you –you could leave and not believe in God anymore. They’d say “you’ll burn in hell,” but so what? Sure, there were papal indulgences, but there is a choice committed on behalf of the attendee; for the most part, society was not “brainwashed” to the point where it was unproductive. The Catholic church was selling the idea of heaven. Evidently, people wanted in –people weren’t being coerced. They had a choice; they chose the idea over cynicism. Now we have the latter. As for the other figures, Presidents and Kings make decisions that point society in the right direction –weather the objectives are society-driven or subjectively unilateral is based on how these actions are rated among the people. Not all Presidents and Kings are bent on world domination; some of them actually are shooting for world peace, a cleaner environment, economic success, technological progress, etcetera. And Parents don’t want the means Trevor has because doing so would be more trouble than just letting the child live. Full control over the child would simply lead to the parents doing that child’s homework, living that child’s life – something we haven’t even gone into with the custodian. What if the subject has no conscience at all? What shall the custodian guide then? The truth is that not every organization with a leader shares Trevor’s hyper-controlled wet dream. Our desires are in constant flux, especially in the media saturated, consumerist culture Americans live in today. Where do you draw the line between cultural influence and brainwashing, and why do you choose to draw it there? Media and consumer culture is just a strawman here. Why do I choose to draw the line here? Because Trevor actually stuck a device INSIDE of his subjects and brought about the change. This is totally different from subliminal “drink coke” messages in theatres, okay?? From here on, there is no choice committed on behalf of the viewer-subject. And even so, if the subliminal message reminds or coincides with the feelings of the viewer-subject, he is acting on his own intentions –something he would have done anyway. The custodian is a conscience driving the vehicle. Call me crazy. I choose to draw the line there. And why do you place so much emphasis on a person's prior state of mind? I put emphasis on prior states of mind because it defines the present, utterly. Present ideas, thoughts, opinions, and desires carry the most importance ONLY IF they existed in the past. The past cannot be changed, but that doesn’t mean it should be forgotten completely; the past adds context to our actions. Without a past, are we not all babies to this world? Too much Memento for you, my friend. And I don’t think you can say, “Regardless of the Breens' past state of mind, whatever they desire in the present is in fact their desire regardless of how that state was acheived.” The thing with this is, it sounds really smart, but you haven’t said anything. Sure, go change how the “state was achieved” all you want. Of course their present desires are the same. Change weather or not “that state“ was achieved and you may get a whole different state of mind for the Breens. Thus, it’s not so “regardless” now is it? If Trevor was a different kind of leader back then -a benign one- what makes you so sure that the Breens wouldn’t remember??? It’s called “persistence of memory” –should look into it. I would argue that perpetuating itself is one of the main functions of power. It certainly doesn't make any sense to have the power to make things easier for yourself and not use it. If you perpetuate your power you have control. You’re saying that it doesn’t make sense to not use this control...? So All rulers use at least some of their power in this way. Often times it is not even purposeful. To succeed in your ends means to partially make things easier for yourself. I thought to succeed meant that your achieved your ends. Making things easier for yourself helps you achieve your ends quicker and easier. The more successes, the easier things get because you are slowly transformer your reality to conform to your vision of how things should be. This is self-evident. The more successes, the more things get easier. Transforming your vision? Yeah, that, and I guess you kinda get more experience as you go along, people begin to believe in you, you begin to believe in yourself, etcetera, okay. What’s the point of all this, btw? Power transforms? Can you explain self-evident to me? Who is the “self” in this statement, and to who is it evident to? You?

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"Has he given them a vision, ambition? Has he empowered them at all, or has he merely made them even more dependent on him, more dependent on the system?" This is a very difficult issue not least because of the semantics. If Trevor were to give the people a vision and ambition, wouldn't they still be falling prey to his influence? How could he create a unified vision thorughout his society without you accusing him of brainwashing people? I would NOT accuse him of brainwashing the people. Leading the people (by giving them a vision) and controlling the people via CUSTODIAN is totally different. If you cannot see the difference (and I’m sure you can’t), our arguing is kind of pointless/never-ending/useless. Such a feat would naturally involve changing people's will, and the end result would be the same as that achieved by the Custodian. Tell me, what is the “end result”? How can you be so sure that the end justifies the means here? Giving people a vision (or goal) automatically means the ruler is depriving his subjects of “will”? You’re using your own vagueness to make yourself seem right; you’re not arguing me on fair grounds. Why are you so sure that giving the people a vision is the equivalent to controlling the people with a mechanical device? You say giving people a vision requires the will of the people be changed –this is assuming that all people fall subject to this vision. This is not practical, or realistic. The leader may simply be preaching a vision, awakening in the citizen a will he never realize he had. Society is comprised of people, not mindless drones and one brain. I agree, for the second society a custodian is just fine. For the real world, however, I agree, people’s wills are dynamic, but that does not mean they are without motive. The second issue here is one of empowerment and dependence. I think it is hard to distinguish the two in the end. The more empowered a nation becomes the more dependent the people become on its rulers. First of all, it was a rhetorical question. Second of all, if a nation is empowered, it is independent. If a nation is dependent, it is not empowered. By their very definition, the two are mutually exclusive. We are arguing, at this point, what constitutes as “empowered” and what defines “dependent.” You can take a stab at it; let’s move on, for I believe this is a question that is really driven by the persona. And I don’t think such masks can be changed –not even in the face of empirical evidence. I think it was a stupid question for me to ask, seeing as how it distracted you from the point I was trying to make. The government can not give the people anything without them ultimately comming to depend on the government for that service. So how do you go about empowering a nation without getting them further mired in dependence on the system? For starters, empowering a nation is not an easy task. The simple answer would be government spending –but this would defeat the point I was trying to make about the people not being dependent on the system. So the right way to go about this would be to do what the United States seems to be doing with free enterprise business and ease of taxation on corporations. Society is being empowered by laws like freedom of speech, freedom of interpretation, freedom of choice; and empowerment by giving citizens the choice to defend themselves (the right to bear arms). Are the people dependent on the government? Well, technically no, and here’s why: Remove big brother and you have even less free enterprise limitations –allowing prostitution, incest, gambling, and all that other junk. Would society crumble? Well, I doubt a society without certain limitations would survive. But before the colonization of North America, natives were getting along just fine. I’d say that a smaller tribe or clan has better chances of going without centralization than an organization over one million people.

* * *

"Does it not stand that the actual rules that govern people are not societal rules, but empirical truth?" Empirical truth is a falsehood. You have to realize the every successive era possesses "the truth" about the world. And that truth is invariably modified or completely altered by the next generation. And that's to say nothing of the many competing truths out there. here in the 21 century we recognized just how little we know about the universe; there are many competing theories about the nature of reality, but generally speaking there is one model that most people accept as truth despite the knowledge that there are many competing models. So we accept, very reality in fact, that our reality, our empirical truths are subject to change. Okay, hold up... what we believe is empirical truth. What changes is observation and raw data from the system that is to be interpreted. Empirical truth is our understanding of reality. Whatever reality is defined as –empirical truth becomes. Empirical truth is the “new model” that is proposed, it is the more accurate data, the more accurate observations that pile up. What's truly remarkable is how often they change and how easily we accept the new truths and discard the old. Empirical truth is our most current definition of reality –I never said it was static. You argue empirical truth on the surface level –what science says our cells are made up of, what keeps our universe together– in the human mind, this is all up for grabs. Consider subjective reality –what my eye sees as red-orange is not what your eye sees as red-orange. We both go to a party. You dance and have the time of your life. I sit around and be bored. Reality says the party was four hours. Subjective reality says that my evening felt like nine hours and your subjective reality says the evening was only two hours. So what you said about “Empirical truth is falsehood” is bullshit. Where you say falsehood, you really mean “not knowing.” So going back to what I said, “Does it not stand that the actual rules that govern people are not societal rules, but empirical truth?" Your own answer seems to agree with this. Maybe not totally empirical truth (not everyone can learn the latest information) but subjective reality? If I cut my arm, I know it’s going to hurt –is this not the knowledge that governs people? That empirical truth –that subjective truth? Above society and above laws, is it not this that keeps us under control? That was the point I was trying to make, and you went off arguing empirical truth on faulty grounds. So now you go on to focus the beam... But this is getting off topic. Going back to the issue of society, it becomes clear that all "truths" are filtered through societal rules and have a social function. It's true that societies often struggle to accept some truths, but the fact that they are accepted means that they were ready to be accepted. It's kind of a post hoc scenario that's self-fulfilling. In your example, Europe still maintained a geocentric view long after Galileo died, and long after Europe accepted that view there were still millions of people elsewhere that still maintaine the geocentric view. The new truth could only be accepted once certian conditions in the society had been met (and what those conditions are I have no idea). Sometimes it's just a matter of killing everbody who disagrees with the dominant view (the irony of Jesus' martyrdom and the Catholic church's purges is delicious), but generelly speaking there has to be some kind of concensus. The "facts" are tools or arguments used to gain consensus. Read my above comments about empirical and subjective truth. That is what I was trying to say, and evidently it wasn’t clear the first run. My “theory” was that our grasp of reality is what keeps us locked into a certain position. This puts the control issue under new light and removes society from the picture. Yes, society can create that second-guessing, that “think again” voice, but it can also come from our own understanding of reality, which is why... I posed the question in the first place. It wasn’t part of my argument, you know, to sound like a smart-ass or anything. Or for it to have a “matter of fact” tone, but simply point out something I thought was relevant. To put the issue in a different bias –placing blame on the individual rather than government or society. Such is the first principal of existentialism.

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By external pressure I did NOT mean government. The sole reason I argued external force as government was to make you type this. It’s funny, but cruel and time- consuming for you. I apologize. You went on to cite some really cool external forces, and others that were kinda not-so-external, but I give you props anyway. I kind of cheat with this model because no pressure is completely external. The pressure is always an integral component of the society, but eventually the pressure becomes too much to bear and there is a schism which creates the concept of the external group/threat and the in group. And the process is a never ending one with billions of variations ranging from the smallest court battles to full scale revolt. It usually takes an incredible amount of pressure though, to unify/create the common interest to the point where people agree to lay down there lives fir each other. The external force (or quasi-external force) either unites the people or scatters the people. For the most part, I get what you’re saying.

* * *

I think you are right that most people simply accept certain laws as a fact of life, but that does not mean that those laws are right or just. The reason most laws exist is because the majority of people believe that those laws are right and/or just. Did you know that if you have problems with a specific law, you can write and propose your own bill? You might even get it passed through legislature if enough people think like you. Seriously!! If law xyz is such a bother, you can go to Europe or Australia, you know. But there are certain laws that never change; laws of human decency, my friend. If you don’t accept these certain laws, then you’re not fit to be part of the human race. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh. I think we accept it out of a sense of impotence in the face of the vast political machine. You’re mistaking “we” with “I” again. All I can say is that I accept laws and regulations because I agree with most of them. The laws and regulations that I don’t agree with, I respect as a law that is needed to perpetuate the government. We can try, but most who try fail, and it takes a lot of time and effort to take on the system, time and effort that a lot of people simply can't spare. And the law works very similary to the mafia. The law is more lenient on those working for the law, i.e. police, judges, politicians, etc. And if those working for the law are assaulted in some way, the law comes down extra hard on the perpetrator, the reason being that all law is backed by pure physical force and a sense of fear and awe must be maintained. Just think about it, if you walk up to me and punch me in the fact for no reason, I can't just shoot you in the head. But try to get within ten feet of the president uninvited and see what happens. Actually the legal organization (synidicate if you will) is so well organized that if I were to write threatening remarks about the president in this post I would probably be paid a visit within a few hours. I know of cases where this has happened. The mafia Dons have their thugs, and the president has the CIA. Just like the mafia, the government is in business for itself. No taxes mean no government, not protection money means no mafia. Where they differ is that because of the way the government is organized, the governement's best interest is satisfied through the common interest. If this is the only difference you can see between the mafia and the government, then I have no use talking to you; you’re obviously overlooking certain facts and purposely fudging info just to serve your end analysis –because it’s what you believe and you won’t believe anything else. Give me a break already. I can go down the alley and buy that opinion with loose change in my pocket. And he’ll probably put it more eloquently than you just did too because he’s spent his time thinking about it over and over again, rather than getting a job and formal education. Can you create a better government or something? A better question: can you create a better government without, in the end, being corrupted yourself? I have to cover all my bases, so this statement has to be this vague. Bring up specifics and I can use better language.

* * *

Me: "So is such a society the ultimate realization of individual freedom?" cynical: "But did you not argue above that a society without external pressure would deviate and not have common interest?? So for this society there would have to be external pressure. But is that external pressure not a contradiction to the concept of "the ultimate realization of individual freedom??" The external pressure would be maintained at a constant rate by the custodians so there wouldn't be any social hiccups. But as for the larger issue of the ultimate realization of human freedom, you are right. Is free will an illusion? It seems that you can either have completel freedom with no will, or your entire will with very little actual freedom because of all the competition, the exception being the man or woman at the top. Perhaps realization of free will is that three- week vacation we get where we go see the untamed wild and camp out for a few days. We realize that free will means more responsibility; hunting your own food, killing it, cooking it. Isn’t it much easier to go to the grocery and buy a specific part of the cow? Packaged in plastic and looking all nice?? I suppose by pure submission, we are simply being lazy –letting another live our life for us. And what do we want ultimately? To be patted on the back? To be praised as a father does to his son? As humankind does to God? Being part of a system is far easier than being against it. The price is great; to some, too great. But for now, that’s who we are. And that’s good enough –until someone finds a way to make communism work.

* * *

I’ll grant you the rich get richer, poor get poorer –never mind the stereotype this perpetuate. That granted, so what? Does this mean rich people have a tendency of being evil? Or that money is the root of evil? That the poor can’t afford to be evil? When did I ever mention the word evil? An underlying theme of all of my posts has been the issue of moral relativism which denies the very existence of good and evil. Ok, I jumped the gun on you. So I was on crack... go on please. That being said, I repeat that the issue of is one of power, which can take many forms, one of which is money. The poor have power, it's just not financial power. And since financial power is so important in a capitalist country, the rich naturally have more power over the poor. The poor have power over the dirt poor, and the dirt poor have the homeless to kick around. Man, you were just going on about relativism!! There are cases of rich men starving to death, unfortunately. In China. Even some of the richest men die of starvation. The question isn’t weather they can afford food –oh, they can. Farmers have depleted the soil and there is literally NO food to buy. You see, even monetary systems and domestic currency is relative to something else. Money won’t feed you if farmers can’t even grow a single carrot. You’re saying the rich man has the advantage STILL over the poor man? Hahaha. No, I say the FARMER has the advantage over both the rich and the poor man. The farmer doesn’t have to sell jack to anybody. And that’s relativism for you.

* * *

Religious leaders vs. political leaders. We’re more or less on the same page now. I’d argue some more, but I’m eating chocolate covered cashews and they RuLe!!!

* * *

Heads up and Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas too! It’s 2002 and the thread’s still growin’ strong!! Bring it on! My subjective reality tells me we’re coming close to resolving all this incessant babble!

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), January 03, 2002.

cynical: "The church told you what you needed to do to get into heaven; if not killing your neighbor was too much for you –you could leave and not believe in God anymore. They’d say “you’ll burn in hell,” but so what? Sure, there were papal indulgences, but there is a choice committed on behalf of the attendee; for the most part, society was not “brainwashed” to the point where it was unproductive."

Historically, the Catholic Church has been very hypocritical. It has supported wars, pronouned valued scientists as heretics, tortured people for being non-believers, given people who pay homage to the church a pass into heaven, the list of crimes goes on and on. As for people having any real choice, that idea is laughable. Maybe today that is true, but for the majority of the Church's history, if you publicly denounced your faith, you would be branded a heretic and treated accordingly.

For instance, during the Peace of God movement, which almost coincided with the first Crusade, the Church issued an edict making it heretical to kill another Christian. However, it was perfectly acceptible to kill non-Christians. Of course should any Christian have the misfortune to be excomunicated, God help him from the wrath of his fellow man who would strip him of all his possesions faster than he could say hail Mary.

And the church was rarely tolerant of othe religions. Remember the inquisition. Converting people through torture is not my idea of free choice.

And society was brainwashed. Not to the point where it was unproductive, because how could the church, which lived off the work of others like a lord over his manor, benefit from an unproductive society, but I think it could have been a lot more productive a lot sooner if the study of science and technoloy had not been treated as witchcraft and heresy.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), January 03, 2002.

cynical: "Full control over the child would simply lead to the parents doing that child’s homework, living that child’s life – something we haven’t even gone into with the custodian. What if the subject has no conscience at all? What shall the custodian guide then?"

Hmmm. Interesting idea. Control requires freedom, otherwise what's the point. So is the purpose of power simply control over others as an end in itself.

cynical: "Why do I choose to draw the line here? Because Trevor actually stuck a device INSIDE of his subjects and brought about the change."

I think Custodian is an allegory for precisely that kind of cultural influence. In our culture there is no physical tampering with the body, but who can really say how much we have changed because we are so bombarded with consumerist dogma. Certainly we are in no position to judge because we are the ones being affected. Of course we won't notice any change; if we did, what would be the point of the message. However, to an outside observer our actions may seem utterly ridiculous. Maybe not cut off your arm and give it to a small boy ridiculous, but up there. Think of plastic surgery, botox ingections, liposuction, artificial insemination, surrogate parenthood. The ways in which we tamper with ourselved to better fit an ever changing cultural ideal of beauty is quickly growing out of hand. Peter Chung probably has a slightly better perspective on this than we do because he seems to spend so much time overeas. Although the world is becoming so Americanized its hard to tell.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), January 03, 2002.

"MEMENTO" SPOILERS BELOW. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

You raise an interesting point with your Memento reference and your persistence of memory jibe. In Memento we discover that he (I forget his name) actually chooses to forget and falsify information in order to maintain the purpose in his life, revenge, and forget his pain, his wife's rape. In essence his memory is an unbearable burden for him and he makes a concious decision that he is better off not knowing the truth. And while this example is extreme, it's not so far from the everday truth. Repression and sublimation are things our minds do so often and so readily that we are almost always unaware of it. And there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it is hard to function as members of society without these tools. We have a great need to forget and fool ourselves and more often than not very depressed people lack these abilities. They cling to their version of the truth even as it drags them down into despair and their ultimate destruction.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), January 03, 2002.

cynical: "You say giving people a vision requires the will of the people be changed –this is assuming that all people fall subject to this vision. This is not practical, or realistic. The leader may simply be preaching a vision, awakening in the citizen a will he never realize he had."

My bad. When you said "has he given them a vision" I automatically assumed you meant a vision that they accept and act upon.

Of course one has to wonder, is there any perceivable difference between awakening a pre-existing vision within someone and telling them what to think. Once a new idea is incorporated into a person's being can we tell how it got their, and do we even care how it got their when we don't know.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), January 03, 2002.

cynical: "Society is being empowered by laws like freedom of speech, freedom of interpretation, freedom of choice..."

Society is empowered by laws, laws which place limits on our freedoms, laws which take the form thou shalt not.

cynical: "Are the people dependent on the government? Well, technically no, and here’s why: Remove big brother and you have even less free enterprise limitations –allowing prostitution, incest, gambling, and all that other junk."

Incest is a form of free enterprise!? Brrrr. Anyway... People ARE dependant on the government because, as you very disturbingly imply above, the government protects free enterprise. It places restrictions on behavior within a free market and protects the validity of those restrictions with sanctions when they are violated. Without the trust in the government's ability to sanction lawbreakers, the whole system would break down. There would no longer be any reason to obey any laws because you would have to assume your competitors would no longer obey any laws. Capitalism can't function without dependance on a system that provides a modicum of insurance against catastrophy. That insurance comes from the government.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), January 03, 2002.

cynical: "What we believe is empirical truth. What changes is observation and raw data from the system that is to be interpreted."

This statement doesn't make any sense. If truth is obtained through interpreting data, and data is obtained through observation, and the mothods of observation are constantly changing, then truth is an illusion.

cynical: "Empirical truth is the “new model” that is proposed, it is the more accurate data, the more accurate observations that pile up."

Truth should be like the hypothetical definition of the atom, it is an irreduceable component of reality. Yet you say, quite plainly, that empirical truth is in constant flux. Doesn't this suggest that empirical truth is a falsehood? There is no irreduceable component, there is only an endless string mysteries wrapped within each other and to say that one is more accurate than another is like putting two satelites in orbit and saying that one is closer to falling than the other.

However....

After reading the rest of your post I get what you are trying to say. The confusion lay in your calling it empirical truth rather than empirical "truth" as well as the fact that you are focusing on individual observations filtered through the senses for that one individual (although clearly all observations are eventually filtered through the senses). It's a good point, but I still think that society's influence over our perceptions is the greater force. For example, society ascribes beauty and value to things while denying these virtues in others. And while all people can a drawing or another human being for that matter, it is society that plays the biggest role in why or why not you think they may be beautiful. Certianly realities like pain are even subject to societal control. Look at the warrior ethic, machismo, and like modes of behavior. They all involve bearing physical discomfort, even death, as a point of pride and honor thus enabling the individual to receive pleasure from pain.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), January 03, 2002.

I kinda warped this one a lot. This comes from me being Christian and all, and my bias is usually to cover up the spotty reputation of Catholicism. In most cases, one could not simply “walk away” –for the task at hand is really “leave the country.” And doing so was a challenge because you would be hunted down by the crusades and slaughtered. Being slaughtered in the name of God is something man has added to organized religion. All religions –even middle eastern ones- were kept and maintained by the belief that there is some kind of value to human life, weather that be a soul, or a promise of another life beyond this one. Jihads and holy wars were something rulers used to conquer people they didn’t like; it was something that was added to religion because of someone’s one-sided goal(s) –and that shows, because once that single person died, there was no reason to keep that malignant aspect of the religion. But today, in the United States, there is freedom of religion –nowadays you can walk away; nobody’s coercing anyone to believe in God; a pastor can preach all he wants about God, but it’s still up to the individual to decide if God is really out there.

Second thing that I kinda went off on was the thing on free enterprise. Of course, we all know what free enterprise is; it’s a free market, stocks can be openly traded, corporations decide how much things cost, etc. Well, eventually I went on to talk of free enterprise and went off on a tangent about barriers to entry, and that fueled my little rant about hardcore pornography, incest, and all the other God-awful things that are often filtered out –out of basic human decency. I did NOT mean that the two were the same –they are related, but not the same. Just tightening up the definition of free enterprise so I don’t get pounced later on; I understand what free enterprise is –the other stuff is a different animal entirely.

Okay, so back to arguing points, it’s unfair to blame the lack of “hustle” on scientific progress on Catholicism alone. Leaders used Catholicism as a tool to sway people to follow them, and as such countries began conquering others, and other followers joined because everybody loves joining the winning side of anything. The lack of scientific progress was not only the fault of the narrow-minded doctrines of Catholicism, but the time period itself: in experimentation they used inaccurate instruments, the living conditions back then put more necessity (read: urgency) on survival (growing food, serving the army) rather than scientific discovery, and even if new knowledge was created not enough people would appreciate it, let alone learn it. Mind you, we’re talking about a time when literacy was not encouraged –kids didn’t spend their time in school, they spent it on the farm helping dad. Personally, I’m glad science didn’t progress exponentially as it does today – a society with extreme technological progress needs to progress as a whole, not just a handful of intellectual minds. True, progress would have been faster if science had not been labeled heresy or witchcraft, but at what cost? Perhaps it might have been because of this declaration so long ago that we have made it to 2002. Perhaps it is our lack of technological progress that has kept us alive this long. It’s just a suggestion.

* * *

I meant to say that I chose to draw the line there because Trevor used a physical device to force change. You went off tangent again to talk about consumerism and socialization. I’ll humor you again. Basically there are a lot of things in our culture that seem ridiculous. Yes, breast augmentation, to say the least, is superfluous and expensive. But moreover what we do with our lives as a human species is even more surprising. We can resurrect men who have been clinically, temporarily dead. We can grow babies out of test tubes, blow each other up with the push of a button, force animals into extinction, and remove prayer from school. In such a world, anything is possible. We are slowly promoting ourselves to the status of gods. In the end, only we ourselves hold the key to undoing our existence as a human species. But I digress, yes, things do seem different from the outside –sometimes even “wrong.”

* * *

About Memento... people lie to themselves, play with themselves, forget on occasion, purposely fudge data, etc. These are all tricks we use to survive. A grain of sand doesn’t know it’s a grain of sand. A patch of grass doesn’t know that one day it will die. We are complicated creatures, and simply existing isn’t enough for us. We go out to fancy restaurants, buy designer clothes, get married, have kids, dream one day of owning a house and a garage full of BMWs, all to justify our existence. Even the perfectly sane “suffer” from their own minds –willfully, sometimes unconsciously. People need, besides nourishment and protection, a reason to live. That is why some people pick vague and unreachable goals. If one’s goal is to be perfect, even if she reaches that goal of “perfection” she can still add or subtract from her definition of “perfect.” There is no “meaning of life.” Yet so many people out there live like there is one. And this is probably the best possible thing that can ever surface from free will.

* * *

Of course one has to wonder, is there any perceivable difference between awakening a pre-existing vision within someone and telling them what to think. Well, I think there is. And by me believing in this very viewpoint, is that the end of that? I am not brainwashing you, am I? If you choose to believe in it, it’s up to you. If I turn this into a doctrine, or bust out with a religion based on it, I may be putting ideas in your head, but you may have had the same idea in mind long before these ideas were even committed to the thread. I am merely inviting you to follow me, if you think the same way; am I bending your will? I think not, man. Once a new idea is incorporated into a person's being can we tell how it got their, and do we even care how it got their when we don't know Only you can tell yourself how it got there. Is it your will? My will? God’s will? Completely subjective. So I ask you, is it your will?? Did what I say invoke a pre-existing ideal? Deep down inside, isn’t that what you’ve always wanted to believe? Am I on crack??

* * *

I lost you on this one, I think. Yes, laws are in the form of “Thou shalt not” but you realize that there’s a lot of “Thou shalt not” to the government too, and this is evident in the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights has a lot of “Thou shalt not”s to the government –in a sense that it is outside of the government, arbitrating it. Thus limiting the government’s power and empowering the people. ...the government protects free enterprise. So no, the government doesn’t protect free enterprise –quite the opposite. The government prevents socialism, but they do a lot to restrain free enterprise. For example, anti- trust laws and the monitoring of corporations to prevent price- gouging, etc. There would no longer be any reason to obey any laws because you would have to assume your competitors would no longer obey any laws. Capitalism can't function without dependance on a system that provides a modicum of insurance against catastrophy. That insurance comes from the government. Capitalism would function rather well, barring outside influences like crime or fraud and such (but that's a different matter). However, without regulation, you'd actually have a free market economy, which has certain moral flaws that Americans don't like (like the ability to stifle out competition if it suits your goals).

* * *

This statement doesn't make any sense. If truth is obtained through interpreting data, and data is obtained through observation, and the mothods of observation are constantly changing, then truth is an illusion. Ah ha! There you go. Illusion. You said empirical truth was falsehood, which I originally disagreed with. Falsehood implies deceit, whereas illusion implies interpretation. An illusion is what our brain interprets from little information –it is why we see a box poking out, instead of one poking in. All the information is there –it’s not falsehood- it’s interpretation of the giving info. The data is usually taken by observation, and this observation is an interpretation of the actual occurrences that happened during experimentation. The data can be full of inaccuracies, but it is just that: data. How people interpret this data is where the difference in views becomes apparent. The data itself says nothing –it is a source if it is interpreted. Certianly realities like pain are even subject to societal control. Look at the warrior ethic, machismo, and like modes of behavior. They all involve bearing physical discomfort, even death, as a point of pride and honor thus enabling the individual to receive pleasure from pain. What are you saying here? Discomfort and pleasure are contradictory..... they simply accept the discomfort. If they feel pleasure, they feel pleasure; if they feel pain, they feel pain. To say they draw pleasure from it no longer makes it discomforting anymore, does it?? So why then the societal control? If the individual derives pleasure from the stimulus, then it’s pleasure; if it’s pain, it’s pain. The problem arises outside of the individual, when one inflicts pleasure that is interpreted as pain, or vista versa. So where, then, is the “stronger” societal controls?? Are you saying that what one feels as pain should really be pleasure? You sick man!! =)

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), January 08, 2002.

Yeah, you're right. Who knows where we would be right now if the scientific revolution had happend a few centuries earlier, but I like to believe we would be better off. I'm a little biased though since I am still waiting our space stations, lunar cities, flying cars, and manned missions to Jupitor (a year late now). Anyway, I still think it's better to take that chance than have the ability to progress and not use it. The church kept a purposeful monopoly on knowledge in order to maintain their hold over the people through a priestly class, and I just think that such manipulation of people's faith is unforgivable. I mean, when Guttenberg printed the bible and then Luther translated it, it wasn't the end of the world. It was however, an end to a great deal of the church's authority (so I guess it was the end of the world for the church). I see no reason to believe that any other kind of scientific breakthrough would wreek catachlysmic changes on the social landscape, at least no more so than we have learned from history. I think what we have to realize as a species is that technological change and social change go hand in hand. We develop technology to make our lives easier, but then we also have to adjust to these vast new sources of power. I don't think it's possible to prepare for technology before it comes; you just have to grow with it. There are things you can do to make the adjustments easier, but it's hard to understand the full impact of modern technology without experiencing it first hand.

My point about consumerism and all that was to point out how greatly social pressures influence our behavior. So much so that if we did in fact have devices implanted into our brains the difference wouldn't be that great. To someone not afflicted by our social diseases, getting breast augmentation or liposuction might seem just as crazy as Bambara cutting off his arm and giving it to a little boy seems to us.

Yeah, Memento. I forget to relate my last post to the topic of discussion which was persistence of memory and how the past shapes the future, according to you. My point was that just as Trevor's Breens have been brainwashed into suddenly feeling one way about something when maybe they felt completely differently before, we often do the same thing to ourselves because it is psychologically or emotionaly, or even socially expedient. So while the past shapes the present, the future can also shape the present and the past simultaneously.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), January 10, 2002.

I see our discussion on free market economies mimicking our discussion on empowering the people...and free will...and whatever else we've talked about. You say governments do not protect free market economies, and I say they do because they provide protection and insurance. However, what I call protection, you call limitations. But here's the thing. You have to place limitations in order to protect the greater freedom of the majority of players involved in the market. Anti trust laws protect a free market because a trust would by necessity limit the freedoms of all other potential players. You say that capitalism would function well without government barring outside influences like crime, but crime is the biggest outside influence a free market has to worry about, and it is the government that keeps crime at bay. Capitalism is about investing, and growth, and time. And all of these things require some type of insurance about future prospects. In that sense capitalism is not really that different from farming. Instead of seeds, you use money, but the principles are the same. You set aside a certain portion of this year's harvest to put toward next year's growth. The more you save for next year, the bigger next year's crop. However, you're shit our of luck if there is a flood or a drought, or a fire, or an earthquake, or lucusts, or whatever. One disaster could wipe you out. In Medieval Europe they developed farming methods to minimize this risk, and today we have even more methods thanks to science, and yes insurance. That's why today we have farms the size of cities, with hundreds of acres of the same crop all growing in the same place instead of the small family farms of just a few centuries ago; insurance (and labor saving devices, which are themselves a kind of insurance). And free markets work the same way. Without insurance, there is no way we could have the vast global interprises we have today. And government provides this insurance. Imagine what would happen if the farmer never tended to his crops. To ensure optimum growth, he had to prune a little.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), January 10, 2002.

I'm sorry three guys are aware of course how it really is for purposes of this episode (Ep. 9 The PURGE) that after all is said and done it's not the Custodians who are invented and deployed for the benefit of humankind; rather it is all of it the other way around, here, I mean, you-all are hip to the fact of this particular twist to this installment, or, right I mean- ?

"The other way around," that is to say: it's ultimately the homo sapien population at-large ("Humanity!!!!") who are pressed into service for the benefit of the Custodians.

-- dangerboy (artian@earthlink.net), January 16, 2002.

Um... continuing where Logo and I left off:

...but I like to believe we would be better off. I'm a little biased though since I am still waiting our space stations, lunar cities, flying cars, and manned missions to Jupitor (a year late now). Anyway, I still think it's better to take that chance than have the ability to progress and not use it. What’s the importance of your space-stations, flying cars, lunar stations and missions to Jupiter? And how does this correlate to us being better off? Don’t pull my card on this one for having a methodology – I really don’t know. You evidently have some very strong feelings towards progress; what’s the rush? Are we in race with someone? I’d rather we take calculated risks; such technological progress is a Pandora’s box of sorts. I don’t fear technological progress, rather the minds and powers that wield it. I think we should focus on education, rather than full-fledged technological advance. An advance in technology will only widen the gap between the rich and the poor –and this kind of clash will only contribute to the decaying of society. Eventually a revolution will occur and undo the progress by stunting it with civil unrest, wars, and displaced labor. I’ll stick to what I said before, a society, a species needs to progress as a whole. A few intelligent minds and a society of imbeciles is like placing a loaded gun into the hands of an infant. The church kept a purposeful monopoly on knowledge in order to maintain their hold over the people through a priestly class, and I just think that such manipulation of people's faith is unforgivable. That was roughly 700 years ago; let it go, man. I would have done the same if I were in that position of power –but that’s just me. I’ll humor you anyway, on behalf of all Protestants, Calvinists, Puritans, Lutherans, Anglicans, Mormons, and all the other world religions out there that have offended you, I would like to apologize. Not only for the slaughtering of thousands in the name of religion, but -above all- for impeding technological progress. Yeah, our view isn’t skewed here... we’ve found a way to itemize human life. You’d think that with all these gadgets we’d be able to listen to each other more clearly; it seems that we have the opposite happening. Let’s continue moving ahead at light speed, those people who rammed planes into the World Trade Center weren’t trying to tell us something –they were just disturbed. I see no reason to believe that any other kind of scientific breakthrough would wreek catachlysmic changes on the social landscape, at least no more so than we have learned from history. You misread what I had originally posted. Given the time-period, I said there wasn’t great demand for scientific discovery –the overall population wasn’t educated enough to appreciate it. The cataclysmic havoc was something I was implying with today’s technological progress. Maybe not so much progress, but man’s use of such technology. As for your reference to the history books and the absence of cataclysm – I don’t know. It depends on how you define cataclysm. Sure, we’re not feeling it because we’re on the winning side, but maybe if you were in Hiroshima when it was bombed... you know? Or what if you had to walk through a patch of land that was set up as a minefield by our very own government? How many disintegrated corpses does it take to classify a cataclysm? How many amputated legs? Ah, hell, they were all losers anyway, right? Yeah, whatever; today we’re even worse than the “church’s monopoly on knowledge.” Before it was restricted; now we just fight over it. I think what we have to realize as a species is that technological change and social change go hand in hand. I wish it were that simple. What about the countries that can’t afford technological change? In my opinion, I think that as a species we must realize that technological advance is superfluous. As human beings we must evolve a moral social- consciousness. We develop technology to make our lives easier, but then we also have to adjust to these vast new sources of power. I don't think it's possible to prepare for technology before it comes; you just have to grow with it. There are things you can do to make the adjustments easier, but it's hard to understand the full impact of modern technology without experiencing it first hand. Were you for or against cloning?

* * *

My point about consumerism and all that was to point out how greatly social pressures influence our behavior. So much so that if we did in fact have devices implanted into our brains the difference wouldn't be that great. To someone not afflicted by our social diseases, getting breast augmentation or liposuction might seem just as crazy as Bambara cutting off his arm and giving it to a little boy seems to us. You’re right; we are freaks. The only difference is that consumerism is perpetuated by a collection of suppliers and an actual implanted device (the custodian) is controlled by a single man. A single person can do more damage than an unorganized assembly of suppliers exerting its own influence to sway the market/population, also there are a series of suppliers advertising ideas that run in opposing directions. Some of us are the wiser too – and this, really, is the only portion you need to control because the rest follow by their own sheer will.

* * *

My point was that just as Trevor's Breens have been brainwashed into suddenly feeling one way about something when maybe they felt completely differently before, we often do the same thing to ourselves because it is psychologically or emotionaly, or even socially expedient. What?? I’m sorry; I’m dense. Example? So while the past shapes the present, the future can also shape the present and the past simultaneously. How does the future shape the present and past? If the model of time is a point in space, designated as the present, extending infinitely in both directions, the past and future are separated by the present.

Past <------------- P -------------> Future

So, I can see how the past shapes the present, but how can the future shape the present and past if it hasn’t even occurred yet in the time line? Theoretically, the future never happens because when it does, it’s already the present, and becomes part of the past. Messy business, huh? In A Brief History of Time, Hawking describes a model of time that looks something like a twisted 888 –it’s wicked. Anyways, if there is no past, there is no future; there is only the present. You see, if it’s just the present:

P -----------> Future

The future slowly becomes the present and after it “has happened” it isn’t recorded as having “passed” –you see what I’m saying? So the future never “happened” – as in, it doesn’t exist in the past; it didn’t happen to be recorded in the past, and therefore the future doesn’t exist because nothing was impacted – all you have is the present. But you know what? I’m probably taking what you said way too literally!

* * *

You have to place limitations in order to protect the greater freedom of the majority of players involved in the market. Anti trust laws protect a free market because a trust would by necessity limit the freedoms of all other potential players. Protecting, limiting –it’s the same thing; we’re just describing what the government does through different viewpoints. If you’re playing the side of the government, the government is protecting the people. If you’re describing what the government does from the business-owner perspective, the government is limiting the corporation’s power. Bottom line, the government seeks to limit a corporation from becoming too rich. You can play the other side, sure – the government wants smaller businesses with innovation to be able to have a fighting chance, the government wants competition –which promotes growth to the country the government taxes. Yeah –who wants to be the winner here? You call it protection; I call it limitation. Wake up and smell the furbies. =) For the most part, it doesn’t seem like we see this issue differently, only that we describe it in different ways. You say that capitalism would function well without government barring outside influences like crime, but crime is the biggest outside influence a free market has to worry about, and it is the government that keeps crime at bay. Depends on what you define “crime” as. Of course, man X who murders man Y for Z amount of cash –this counts as a crime. But what about inside trading? Is that a crime? The government says it’s a crime –it’s not hurting anyone, but it’s not “fair” so it was tossed out a long time ago. What about five or six rich men all buying stock in the same company? Is that a crime? Yeah. You say the government is watching the system, protecting it from itself – I say such laws are simply free-enterprise limiting maneuvers. Some people refer to the above ideas as “creative investing” – I am one such person. =) Are these really crimes? You say these measures are necessary to prevent inflation –but the government could simply choose to take money out of circulation, tax the private sector, or bump up social security. Give me a break; the only thing the government is protecting is its power-hold over corporations. Capitalism is about investing, and growth, and time. And all of these things require some type of insurance about future prospects. No!! What are you talking about? Capitalism is just that: Capitalism –capitalizing off your ideas, your hard work; the harder and smarter you work, the more you are rewarded. Investors may invest in corporations by buying shares of the company, and this in turn gives companies the capital to research, develop, and manufacture a product. There is no insurance – which is what makes trading risky. In that sense capitalism is not really that different from farming. Instead of seeds, you use money, but the principles are the same. You set aside a certain portion of this year's harvest to put toward next year's growth. The more you save for next year, the bigger next year's crop. However, you're shit our of luck if there is a flood or a drought, or a fire, or an earthquake, or lucusts, or whatever. One disaster could wipe you out. In Medieval Europe they developed farming methods to minimize this risk, and today we have even more methods thanks to science, and yes insurance. That's why today we have farms the size of cities, with hundreds of acres of the same crop all growing in the same place instead of the small family farms of just a few centuries ago; insurance (and labor saving devices, which are themselves a kind of insurance). And free markets work the same way. Without insurance, there is no way we could have the vast global interprises we have today. And government provides this insurance. Imagine what would happen if the farmer never tended to his crops. To ensure optimum growth, he had to prune a little. But you see, the government isn’t insuring anything. People lose their money in stocks and mutual funds every day. When the WTC went down, trading stopped for a day – but when trading resumed tons of people dumped their stock and tons of companies lost capital. Going back to what you said about a single disaster wiping out the whole crop: yeah, totally –the government doesn’t really protect the economy from going under. As for the government being some kind of farmer and pruning businesses – I still call that limiting!! If the government is a farm and farmer, then a free market economy is a rainforest ecosystem. Sure the rainforest is misunderstood – you have to hack your way through it, but it is also the environment where you find inter-woven roots, tall trees, and life-saving pharmaceuticals. Okay, I took the metaphor too far; what the hell am I talking about? Oh yeah, the government doesn’t protect jack – they limit big corporations by regulating their actions, and they do this to prevent corporations from becoming rich because rich corporations pay less taxes. I already know you’re gonna argue that last point, so I’ll take some time to explain it: A rich corporation gets taxed more than an individual, true, but it still pays less in taxes. After a company does the pay role, each individual is taxed, and when that individual buys something, there is a sales tax. A corporation does not pay sales tax –and this is because the government encourages the corporation to buy business supplies, grow, expand, license new technology, build a factory and employ more workers. But if the corporation is not building factories, taking out loans and stuff, but simply buying assets, paying the board of directors six-digit salaries, and donating money to the CEO’s church as a tax write-off, the corporation is actually paying less taxes than the employees.

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), January 23, 2002.

Well...To start, I don't think that just because someone is uneducated that they are necessarily an imbecile. Education merely brings out the potential that already exists in the individual; at least that's the idea. That being said, I totally agree with you about the importance of education. Ironically though, if we placed more emphasis on education I think we would see a huge increase in our technological evolution; much faster than the current rate of change. The reason being that certain portions of the population that knew nothing about technological engineering would now have the education to take critical roles in that field. So if you are against technology, you probably would want as little money spent on education as possible.

----

It's kind of hard to just "let it go man." I am not personally offended by those actions, it's just that I don't think the Church has changed that much. What has changed is the world around it and the Church has been forced to accept certain realities that it finds unpalatable. And its been dragged kicking and screaming the whole way. As an organization (an impossibly wealthy organization at that) concerned with its own self-preservation, the Catholic church would probably repeat all the crimes of the past if it had to and if it could get away with it. And I can't believe you say you would have done the same thing. What's your reasoning behind this? No matter what it is you seek, you will be 100 times more successful helping the people than by hurting them (unless your goal is to hurt them). But anyway, my whole point in attacking the Church, again, was to point out how though change is usually feared, it is almost never as bad as it seems. I mean if we waited for the whole world to evolve, we'd still be living in sod houses. There's no way this exchange would be taking place. And who would decide when it's time to progress to the next stage of technology? And on what would they base their decision? Social sciences are kind of a crock in that you can't really tell anything for sure until after the fact. They have very low predictive validity where it counts most.

----

In the examples you give concerning catachlysm, it is actually the most educated members of society that spearhead those initiatives. The order to drop the bomb, or mine a field, or develope a neutron bomb all come from the top. The uneducated lackeys have no say in these matters and so I don't see why you think their supposed inability to understand the technology would have any effect on the social order whatsoever. And if you mean non-military technology like ATM machines and computers, then your point is still invalid as no one but the developers of the technology understand it at first. For the rest of us, we learn by doing, and uneducated people are just as capable of doing as educated people. In fact seeing as how kids adapt so quickly to new technology compared to adults, one could argue that less education might actually be beneficial.

-----

Every country can afford technological change to some degree. Sure some tiny country in southeast asia may not be able to afford a communications satellite, but they also don't need one when all thier citizens live in grass huts. Technology should always serve a purpose, and it always does serve a purpose. A communications satellite on an island of grass huts has no purpose, especially since it requires so much assisting technology to function. Instead a country like that should invest in medical technology or some cheap labor saving devices so that kids could be educated in thier free time. Of course that's only if, as a society they want such change. Some cultures are perfectly happy living in grass huts, and I can't say I blame them.

cynical - "The only difference is that consumerism is perpetuated by a collection of suppliers and an actual implanted device (the custodian) is controlled by a single man. A single person can do more damage than an unorganized assembly of suppliers exerting its own influence to sway the market/population, also there are a series of suppliers advertising ideas that run in opposing directions."

So you object to Trevor, not on moral grounds concerning free will, but on the economic grounds that his "venture" carries with it too much risk. So if Trevor were to hedge his Custodian venture with another opposing venture, say Monica for instance, you would have no objection since you are guaranteed to have some survivors if something goes wrong.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), January 23, 2002.

cynical - "How does the future shape the present and past? If the model of time is a point in space, designated as the present, extending infinitely in both directions, the past and future are separated by the present.

Past <------------- P -------------> Future

So, I can see how the past shapes the present, but how can the future shape the present and past if it hasn’t even occurred yet in the time line? Theoretically, the future never happens because when it does, it’s already the present, and becomes part of the past. Messy business, huh? In A Brief History of Time, Hawking describes a model of time that looks something like a twisted 888 –it’s wicked. Anyways, if there is no past, there is no future; there is only the present. You see, if it’s just the present:

P -----------> Future

The future slowly becomes the present and after it “has happened” it isn’t recorded as having “passed” –you see what I’m saying? So the future never “happened” – as in, it doesn’t exist in the past; it didn’t happen to be recorded in the past, and therefore the future doesn’t exist because nothing was impacted – all you have is the present. But you know what? I’m probably taking what you said way too literally!"

This is completely off topic, but interesting, so I will respond.

I don't know what Hawking says, and far be it for me to argue with the smartest man in the world, but the way way I see it there is no such thing as "the future", rather there are possible futures. As intelligent beings with the capacity to represent models of these possible futures in our minds, we can anticipate them and take certain actions to avoid seemingly inevitable conclusions that we find infavorable. In other words, our representation of "the future" changes our behavior in the present which then creates a whole new set of possible futures. Without this capacity to mental model, we would be at the complete mercy of time. Of course, the present influences the past all the time. Not the "actual" past, whatever that is, but history, which is as close as we can get to the past. History is constantly being revisited, rethought, and revised, and of course this revised past will affect how future generations (who have only known that revised past) view the world.

The key point here is the difference between actual time and time as we experience it. I don't what actual time is, but the time we experience, and the time we expect to experience is as malleable as the words I am typing right now.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), January 23, 2002.

cynical - "How does the future shape the present and past? If the model of time is a point in space, designated as the present, extending infinitely in both directions, the past and future are separated by the present.

Past <------------- P -------------> Future

So, I can see how the past shapes the present, but how can the future shape the present and past if it hasn’t even occurred yet in the time line? Theoretically, the future never happens because when it does, it’s already the present, and becomes part of the past. Messy business, huh? In A Brief History of Time, Hawking describes a model of time that looks something like a twisted 888 –it’s wicked. Anyways, if there is no past, there is no future; there is only the present. You see, if it’s just the present:

P -----------> Future

The future slowly becomes the present and after it “has happened” it isn’t recorded as having “passed” –you see what I’m saying? So the future never “happened” – as in, it doesn’t exist in the past; it didn’t happen to be recorded in the past, and therefore the future doesn’t exist because nothing was impacted – all you have is the present. But you know what? I’m probably taking what you said way too literally!"

This is completely off topic, but interesting, so I will respond.

I don't know what Hawking says, and far be it for me to argue with the smartest man in the world, but the way way I see it there is no such thing as "the future", rather there are possible futures. As intelligent beings with the capacity to represent models of these possible futures in our minds, we can anticipate them and take certain actions to avoid seemingly inevitable conclusions that we find infavorable. In other words, our representation of "the future" changes our behavior in the present which then creates a whole new set of possible futures. Without this capacity to mental model, we would be at the complete mercy of time. Of course, the present influences the past all the time. Not the "actual" past, whatever that is, but history, which is as close as we can get to the past. History is constantly being revisited, rethought, and revised, and of course this revised past will affect how future generations (who have only known that revised past) view the world.

The key point here is the difference between actual time and time as we experience it. I don't what actual time is, but the time we experience, and the time we expect to experience are as malleable as the words I am typing right now because they exist in the mind and are distinct from external reality.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), January 23, 2002.

Oops. Please excuse that first post.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), January 23, 2002.

cynical - "Protecting, limiting –it’s the same thing...it doesn’t seem like we see this issue differently, only that we describe it in different ways."

Well then why are we arguing. Didn't I begin this thread by arguing against the notion of free wil, and weren't you originally arguing for the sanctity of free will. Yet time and again I've heard you say you would give up your freedom for security's sake, and recently that you would even clench your own iron hand from time to time if you had the chance. That being the case, why are you so against the Custodian project, or why do you think you are so against it. Your arguments indicate that you would actually welcome it. The Custodians limit the power of the people to the point where they are completely protected from each other.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), January 23, 2002.

And on to economics.

OK. First of all, trading is risky, you'll get no argument from me there, but smart traders make it less risky by hedging their investments. Why do you think there has been a meteoric rise in hedge fund and mutual fund investments over the last couple of decades? Smart investers know you can't put all your eggs in one basket.

You describe capitalism as capitalizing off your ideas and hard work, but that is not possible without some type of protective agency because someone else could just come along and steal your work.

For some reason you put words into my mouth about how anti-trust laws prevent inflation; I've never used the word inflation in any of my posts. However, the sheer vociferousness with which you argue your point combined with your other posts, now gives me a more complete picture of who you are and what kind of mentality I am dealing with. You have all the answers and yet you know nothing about business; and I freely admit that I know nothing about business. Why don't you just drop the act and admit to me and to yourself that you don't give a damn about free will, or justice, human rights. You care about your own well-being. In so far as these other things don't interfere with your own well-being then you are all gung ho, but the minute any limit is placed on you, you object to the unfair legal practices of the government. The government is just out to get poor little Big Business.

I'm not saying the government doesn't have it's won agenda. If you look at my previous posts I have often argued that the government is an organization just like any other, concerned with its own well- being, like you and poor little Big Business. However, in this case, by limiting the powers of big business through anti-trust legislation, the government is doing good overall. I don't expect you to understand the notion of the overall good though, because you are blinded by your own avarice, or that of your parents.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), January 23, 2002.

Thanks for not taking it personal, Logo. Geez, that last comment you slipped in there was a little below the belt. I still respect you though; I really don’t care what you think of me. Look, just because I argue a point doesn’t mean I believe in it. Kind of like how a lawyer defends the rights of a suspected criminal, even if the criminal is guilty. There are times that I agree with you, yet argue the other side just so that the unfavored side is better represented. Who are YOU to say what’s right and wrong –to say who’s religion is messed up and who’s isn’t? The only reason I’m even posting on this thread is to argue the view opposite of yours; think of it as a public service. I believe there is a need to represent this other view; it’s not as simple as drawing a line in the sand – there are ramifications to any doctrine we hold to mind as truth, and so this truth must be challenged and compromised for the benefit of the individual. And you have proven that there is some sort of significance to what I say; without me, there is no argument –it’s just you typing. In fact, if I never even responded to your VERY first post, I would guess that this thread would be much, much shorter. Maybe it’s time to end all this now; maybe I’ll just stop responding to your posts because it’s suddenly taken a turn for the rude. The last couple of posts seemed friendlier because, I guess we were agreeing – our views were actually becoming one in the same. But a funny thing happened because we suddenly began to take each other’s position in the argument – you eventually turned more conservative, and to balance that I started arguing a more liberal view, albeit trying to be funny at the same time. So what the hell ended up happening? Well, for one, I’m offended. Second, the thread will continue to grow because there is once again a counterpoint. I’ll tell you the truth though, if you really must know who I am, as a person. In that last post I was sadistically saying things, purposely, just to get some kind of emotionally-charged response out of you. I really am a Christian, but I don’t try to convert my friends or anything. Some people believe money is the root of all evil; I believe that NOT having money is the root of all evil. I respect the United States government –for real- it just so happens that I had to argue it in the negative for capitalism. My personal opinion? I think the government does maintain fair play and it does protect the public; but if I agreed with you – well, what’s the point in that?? So, for the record, I’m going to continue to argue it as limiting, rather than protecting –don’t hold that against me. Trevor and the custodians – I think it is an extreme case, and I do think that it is different from the way corporations and governments use propaganda. What about your point of view? Are you contradicting your previous posts, or has your view changed? That long spell there where I didn’t post a response... did you want me to stop posting counterpoint? Are you mad at me or something? I’ll stop if you want. I thought we were having fun, but, judging by your last post, you obviously don’t respect me – you can care less about my opinion. Do you view me as your adversary? Why do I even ask? I can care less about your answer. Go ahead and insult me all you want – nobody else is reading this thread but you, me and Dangerboy from time to time. Reading my previous posts, I can understand why you think I’m a jerk, and that comes from our argument being part of a thread, typed, and not face-to-face. I use a lot of sarcasm and stuff to get my point across. Sometimes it comes out sounding annoying –like some pretentious punk, but that’s not what I mean. I don’t try to size you up when I post things; I do, but never to the extent you tried in your last post, simply because it’s irrelevant to the argument – what do my personal beliefs matter? I’m arguing counterpoint. If I were to judge you by what you post, I’d think that you were some sort of raving madcap –having a need to awaken this view in people that the government runs like the mafia and that Trevor’s custodian world is no different from our world. But you obviously aren’t such a character because you’re logical and well-read. I never said I was smarter than you; I never claimed to have all the answers – that is something you typed on impulse; that’s where you jump the gun on me. I shall admit it now: I don’t have all the answers, and I’m not smarter than you. I am humbled. But does any of that really matter? I’m pretty tired of all of this.

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), January 24, 2002.

You have all the answers and yet you know nothing about business; and I freely admit that I know nothing about business.

Why did you even bother typing this? If you say you don’t know anything about business, how do you know I don’t know anything about business? Why don’t you tell me how it’s suppose to go then?

Why don't you just drop the act and admit to me and to yourself that you don't give a damn about free will, or justice, human rights. You care about your own well-being. In so far as these other things don't interfere with your own well-being then you are all gung ho, but the minute any limit is placed on you, you object to the unfair legal practices of the government. The government is just out to get poor little Big Business.

Just so you know, you obviously didn’t get what I said: the government is TRYING to limit Big Business. The folks who actually end up paying are the poor and middle-class. Even in government spending, it is the corporations who get subsidies, not individuals. The inflation thing wasn’t even that important – the mere act that the government is PROTECTING is what’s important – it doesn’t matter what. Anyway, the ball’s in your court. I’m pretty pissed, but I guess it’s all warranted. You can think this about me, but if you’re going to mix it with an otherwise legitimate argument, I think I’m done here. As for your feelings about the church – I’m sorry you feel that way. It was pretty messed up– the people responsible have been dead for hundreds of years. I see change in the church; maybe one needs only to open his eyes to see this change.

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), January 24, 2002.

Thanks for all your insight. Sorry for being so pressing, everyone; no one should have to explain themselves to such an extent. The persona is the cause of this world. I hope some of you got something out of this discussion. It's been a real pleasure.

Cheers,
cynical

-- cynical (gemini318@excite.com), January 24, 2002.

Man alive, cyn, you give me the hinks.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), January 24, 2002.

AND THE WINNER IS:

Logo,on the issue of the Gubmint being crooks and the Church being counterintuitive to its stated values.Although I must say,cynical did an impressive job defending dearly held beliefs,while Logo was merely having an intellectual debate.Logo had much less at stake,and I don't think Hawthorne could successfully defend the Catholic Church,knowing all that we do about them.And they still do nasty stuff today.All's I'll say is that Mother Teresa was against birth control IN INDIA.

cynic won the issues of Business being crooks and the need for progress to be stunted somewhat,because if technology is allowed to run rampant,the natural world and those people in huts would be obliterated.And that's without disaster.

-- alex (doesn't work@yahoo.com), May 04, 2003.

this is a long thread -i didn't read all of it cuz i skipped around, but when logo starts going off on government belonging to those who have power -i don't see that as correct. cynic's view on government is a little closer, but this kind of debate isn't very new. should give plato's republic a read. cynic's point is better worded in plato's republic; if the powerful is all-powerful, and the weak is perfectly-weak, then what has the powerful seek to gain from the weak?

their views on government (logo & cynical) can be traced to their ideas on human nature. cynical's view is much like plato's republic, and logo's is more like machiavelli's the prince. but, recall that machiavelli (in the discourses) admits that a republican constitution is better than a monarchy.

and the crusades was a cover -religion as an excuse to kill. at the time the church was arguing over how to pray and the people did not have a stable government. they made a living by plundering each other. it wasn't until america was colonized that people began to realize that they could instead plunder nature's abundance and that nature could not fight back. so yeah, cynic won the stunted progress thing.

that's kinda funny because i'd expect someone with a screen name "cynical" to support logo's views on government,politics,religion,etc.

-- julie (jhr@novusm.ca), November 26, 2003.