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[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Sugetsu

You certainly don't understand what morality is. Morality is subjective. Morality is relative and dependent on the culture. Morality is irrelevant to global or universal relations between people.

What really matters is spirituality, which boils down to your level of awareness. Your understanding of universal laws is what matters, and in order to reach a high level if spirituality one must use reason as tool to reach underssanding of the the environment.

Having said that, mathematics is the use of logic and reason, therefore, base on elementary reasoning one cannot be highly powerful but laking in awareness; you would self destroy long before that happens.

Of course I don't expect you to agree with anything I said as you have always shown. So let it be.

You assume much. The easiest example here is a collective consciousness--if an alien race is of a single integrated mind, one member of the species harming another would be tantamount to a human cutting off their own hand. They may not be violent toward each other for this reason, but what would stop them from being violent towards us?

What if they saw us as an unstable element, a vicious and bloodthirsty race, a potential danger to them and their peace? Surely many conflicts of our own have been caused by one group feeling threatened by another, even if no overt hostility has occurred.

What you're talking about are humans. In order for humans to achieve that true projection of power and technology required for conquering the stars, we would indeed have to work together as one, put aside our differences and come together in union.

But an alien species that evolved as a union? They may be incapable of violence toward their own, but due to their shared consciousness, they might never have learned to deal with outsiders.

[bladeofdarkness]

Originally Posted by Haak

I also believe Israel have been extremely excessive in that mentality and that it needs to be curbed.

you make it sound as if this mentality is baseless.
"just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you"

[Haak]

Originally Posted by bladeofdarkness

you make it sound as if this mentality is baseless.

I was actually trying to avoid that. The big issue is that both sides have some basis for their actions. That's how they've kept going.

[Jinto]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

i seriously doubt it.

Because you have no idea about the level of technology that is necessary for interstellar travel, it has the potential to destroy worlds. If you consider that potential, you'ld see that such space traveling society must be very advanced in morals and ethics, otherwise it would have wiped out itself long before it was able to do meaningful interstellar or even more complicated intergalactic space travel.

If they learned anything about evolution in the process, than that diversity is far more important than specializing for survival. Especially if we speak of artificial/technological/societal evolution, where the boundaries between species fall.

If humanity at its current society/morals level had the technology to do intergalatic space travel, we would have completely wiped out our world in a few days or hours (and thats a best case assumption).

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

You assume much. The easiest example here is a collective consciousness--if an alien race is of a single integrated mind, one member of the species harming another would be tantamount to a human cutting off their own hand. They may not be violent toward each other for this reason, but what would stop them from being violent towards us?

What if they saw us as an unstable element, a vicious and bloodthirsty race, a potential danger to them and their peace? Surely many conflicts of our own have been caused by one group feeling threatened by another, even if no overt hostility has occurred.

What you're talking about are humans. In order for humans to achieve that true projection of power and technology required for conquering the stars, we would indeed have to work together as one, put aside our differences and come together in union.

But an alien species that evolved as a union? They may be incapable of violence toward their own, but due to their shared consciousness, they might never have learned to deal with outsiders.

A hive mind or single mind species is too specialized to reach a meaningful technological level. Lets assume individualism to be a sorts of artificial mutation that is necessary for technological advance (I am not going to prove that thesis here). Then the lack of individualism means there are no mutations that are required for evolution to work.
By this logic, your hive mind never had the chance to reach that technological level (even though it might have survived it).

[bladeofdarkness]

Originally Posted by Haak

I was actually trying to avoid that. The big issue is that both sides have some basis for their actions. That's how they've kept going.

well... lets see.
last night, the Israeli embassy in Egypt came under attack by a mob:

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Egyptian protesters pull down Israel embassy wall
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7885PH20110909

one of the protesters was later interviewed by the press, and talked proudly about how he and several of his fellow protesters managed to break in and beat up one of the embassy staff.

when attacking an embassy (of a country that hasn't been your enemy for decades) and beating up diplomatic staff is something you take pride in... its kind of hard to think of you as a friend.

[Haak]

It's kinda hard for anyone to think of Israel as a friend either...

But that's not the point. Even if you decide to label and stereotype Egyptians that way, it's not like there isn't some basis. Do you really think that anger just comes out of nowhere?

[Anh_Minh]

Semantics game.

Originally Posted by Sugetsu

You certainly don't understand what morality is. Morality is subjective. Morality is relative and dependent on the culture. Morality is irrelevant to global or universal relations between people.

Morality guides what we choose to do to ourselves and others. So, yeah, it's pretty relevant. Especially so when we're talking about dealing with inferiors.

What really matters is spirituality, which boils down to your level of awareness. Your understanding of universal laws is what matters, and in order to reach a high level if spirituality one must use reason as tool to reach underssanding of the the environment.

Not in any dictionary but your own. What necessary for interstellar travel is understanding and mastery of the physical, which is pretty disconnected from the spiritual. Unless you think aliens are going to pray themselves across the stars?

Having said that, mathematics is the use of logic and reason, therefore, base on elementary reasoning one cannot be highly powerful but laking in awareness; you would self destroy long before that happens.

I'll bite. What axioms, what equations are you basing your reasoning on? "Mathematics" isn't a magic word to win arguments. You have to put your numbers where your mouth is.

As a species, we've been to space, to the moon, with the possibility of self-inflicted extinction still looming over our collective shoulder. What's to keep other species from going further? Heck, do you have any idea what it takes to make an FTL drive? Of course not. At this point, nobody does.

Originally Posted by Jinto

Because you have no idea about the level of technology that is necessary for interstellar travel, it has the potential to destroy worlds. If you consider that potential, you'ld see that such space traveling society must be very advanced in morals and ethics, otherwise it would have wiped out itself long before it was able to do meaningful interstellar or even more complicated intergalactic space travel.

If they learned anything about evolution in the process, than that diversity is far more important than specializing for survival. Especially if we speak of artificial/technological/societal evolution, where the boundaries between species fall.

If humanity at its current society/morals level had the technology to do intergalatic space travel, we would have completely wiped out our world in a few days or hours (and thats a best case assumption).

All it means is that they've found in within themselves to not destroy the boat they're in. It doesn't even mean a total absence of conflict. And it means precious little for their view of us.

A hive mind or single mind species is too specialized to reach a meaningful technological level. Lets assume individualism to be a sorts of artificial mutation that is necessary for technological advance (I am not going to prove that thesis here). Then the lack of individualism means there are no mutations that are required for evolution to work.
By this logic, your hive mind never had the chance to reach that technological level (even though it might have survived it).

Ipse dixit. You base your assertion that Syn is wrong on an assumption that is itself baseless.

[bladeofdarkness]

Originally Posted by Haak

It's kinda hard for anyone to think of Israel as a friend either...

But that's not the point. Even if you decide to label and stereotype Egyptians that way, it's not like there isn't some basis. Do you really think that anger just comes out of nowhere?

I think this anger comes from the fact that hating Israel has become a practical cultural landmark in most Arab countries at this point.

after all, "Mein Kampf" is a best seller in much of the Arab world.

its not that Israel doesn't do wrong from time to time, but the level of hate for hate's sake it gets is far in excess of that.

[Haak]

Okay then let's assume that's true. How did it become a cultural landmark?

[Ithekro]

One can have technological superiority and the ability to destroy one's self without using it to kill one's self. We've had Nuclear energy and weapons for 66 years now. We've used the atomic bomb (basically the weakest of the weapons we have of that type) twice in war. We have used it far more in testing than in battle. We've had some accident with our nuclear power plants. Some people have died, but we've not wiped humanity off the face of the Earth.

Our nature includes self-preservation. When we invent a technology that can power us beyond our solar system at anything close to a reasonable speed, we will probably develope a weapon based on it...but we will know, at least approximately what it will do. We will test it, but if it is expected to level the entire planet (and I don't mean in a theoretical fashion like the claim the atom bomb would cook off the atmosphere), we'd find another world to test it on. We would also have the same set of deturents in place like we have now with nuclear weapons...because fear and self preservation demand it even with military and scientific forces demand we advance.

[bladeofdarkness]

Originally Posted by Haak

Okay then let's assume that's true. How did it become a cultural landmark?

because the various leaders of the Arab world have been using the good old "Strike at the Jews" tactic to distract from internal affairs since the day after Israel was formed.
and I'm not kidding here, exactly the day after.

deflecting attention by lashing out at Israel is so common in the Arab world that its almost a joke at this point.
Look up "Mossad sharks" if you don't believe me.

though, to be fair to the Arabs, they didn't INVENT this mentality, they simply adopted it.
the credit for inventing this goes to Europe.

[ganbaru]

Another text about the Israelian embassy in Egypt:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...09-10-05-59-11

[bladeofdarkness]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Another text about the Israelian embassy in Egypt:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...09-10-05-59-11

Israeli
not Israelian

[Jinto]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

All it means is that they've found in within themselves to not destroy the boat they're in. It doesn't even mean a total absence of conflict. And it means precious little for their view of us.

Wrong, at least according to my belief about what success in evolution means. But I agree a discussion about faith (theories that cannot be proven) is pointless.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Ipse dixit. You base your assertion that Syn is wrong on an assumption that is itself baseless.

Yeah, I even said so. This is only my belief and I am not able to prove it. Neither can you disprove it. And just because something cannot be proven, does not mean it is wrong. This applies for Syn's theory too. However, based on real world observations (this world and its species) it is very unlikely that hive minds have the necessary intelectual mutations going on to evolve much in technology (a hive mind is based on the idea that all think basically the same). At some point you can only estimate whats more likely to be the truth. And of course I can be wrong.

Actually I see a way how something like a hive mind could actually reach that level... if a non-hive mind species create a super/seed AI (basically a technological singularity from the point of view of the species), then this AI could dominate said species and control it. But there would be still the individuals of that species that are certainly useful to that AI. The imperfectness of the human mind for example is the reason that the brain is an incredibly powerful problemsolver (well, not in all humans). Anyway, it would be a waste to not utilize those cheap problemsolvers. I doubt the seed AI can be more efficient energy wise.

Now I've already written more about this, then I actually care.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Jinto

Wrong, at least according to my belief about what success in evolution means. But I agree a discussion about faith (theories that cannot be proven) is pointless.



Yeah, I even said so. This is only my belief and I am not able to prove it. Neither can you disprove it. And just because something cannot be proven, does not mean it is wrong. This applies for Syn's theory too. However, based on real world observations (this world and its species) it is very unlikely that hive minds have the necessary intelectual mutations going on to evolve much in technology (a hive mind is based on the idea that all think basically the same). At some point you can only estimate whats more likely to be the truth. And of course I can be wrong.

Actually I see a way how something like a hive mind could actually reach that level... if a non-hive mind species create a super/seed AI (basically a technological singularity from the point of view of the species), then this AI could dominate said species and control it. But there would be still the individuals of that species that are certainly useful to that AI. The imperfectness of the human mind for example is the reason that the brain is an incredibly powerful problemsolver (well, not in all humans). Anyway, it would be a waste to not utilize those cheap problemsolvers. I doubt the seed AI can be more efficient energy wise.

Now I've already written more about this, then I actually care.

The difference is, Syn and I are talking about possibilities. We're saying "who knows? anything's possible about an hypothetical species developing in an unknown environment and achieving unknown technological feats".

What you're saying is that we're wrong, because you say so.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by bladeofdarkness

because the various leaders of the Arab world have been using the good old "Strike at the Jews" tactic to distract from internal affairs since the day after Israel was formed.
and I'm not kidding here, exactly the day after.

deflecting attention by lashing out at Israel is so common in the Arab world that its almost a joke at this point.
Look up "Mossad sharks" if you don't believe me.

though, to be fair to the Arabs, they didn't INVENT this mentality, they simply adopted it.
the credit for inventing this goes to Europe.

Even if Arab leaders first started using it as a scapegoating tactic, Israel has done plenty to justify the poor view arabs have of it. You have to bear in mind, that arabs see Israel as a foreign entity, occupying land that is rightfully there. The extremely high wealth disparity between Palestinians and Israelis only confirms Israel's illegitimacy.

Just like Jews in Israel feel sympathy when Jews are discriminated against around the world, Arabs outside the Levant feel immense sympathy with Palestinians. It only makes sense that they're going to agitate in favour of Palestinians. And on the part of Palestinians, you can't expect them to do nothing when they lead a humiliating existence as second class citizens, while they daily see more and more Jews encroaching and taking over lands they consider theirs.

Of course, Israeli's feel like they're continuously under attack, under seige.

It's not an easy problem, but I think the only way towards peace is for Israeli to take the first step and remove the causes for most palestinian grievances. You can't expect militants to be able to make that gesture. But when the causes for Palestinian greivance is gone, the support base for these islamists will dry up, and they'll simply fade into obscurity. There's no way for Israel to stop any bombs from going off. They can't ever rid themselves of the palestinians, and they can't ever stop the flow of weapons.

It's like in Northern Ireland, while Catholics were routinely discriminated against there was fertile ground for the IRA and other paramilitaries to recruit. Once an amicable solution was found, and catholics could lead a decent life with influence in government, then people simply stopped joining the paramilitaries, and since then the paramilitaries have been slowly and surely fading into obscurity. Now they're little more then organised crime organisations, with only the die hards left.

You don't solve such a problem by using a bigger stick. In order to win like that, the Israelis would basically have to kill every Palestinian, because the more they do, the more Palestinians simply want to protect themselves and fight back. They can't be scared into submission. Look at what's happened over the last 10 years. Israelis have only become more and more aggresive, and Palestinian attacks more and more vicious.

If the Israeli's could win over the "silent majority" of Palestinians over to them, by giving them the broad and mild demands they desire, like a say in government, recognition as a seperate state (or better rights withing a single state), freedom to work in israel, and the rolling back of the most egregious colonies, then the israelis would find that they could get the Palestinians to deal with their extremists for them.

[Haak]

Originally Posted by bladeofdarkness

because the various leaders of the Arab world have been using the good old "Strike at the Jews" tactic to distract from internal affairs since the day after Israel was formed.
and I'm not kidding here, exactly the day after.

deflecting attention by lashing out at Israel is so common in the Arab world that its almost a joke at this point.
Look up "Mossad sharks" if you don't believe me.

though, to be fair to the Arabs, they didn't INVENT this mentality, they simply adopted it.
the credit for inventing this goes to Europe.

Okay let's assume they got it from Europe. How did this mentality become adopted so easily?

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Haak

Okay let's assume they got it from Europe. How did this mentality become adopted so easily?

Historically, Islamic countries have actually been quite tolerant of Jews. At least compared to Christian Europe.

[Haak]

I want to see if he's going to mention two specific wars between Israel and Egypt. It just seems rarther strange to me that he had yet to point them out despite them obviously being important.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Historically, Islamic countries have actually been quite tolerant of Jews. At least compared to Christian Europe.

That is because they are all the same - they don't eat pork, worship only one omnipotent, omniscient and invincible entity, and have been residing across the Western European continent since time immemorial.

It is just their utter stupidity that cause them to go into conflict with each other because each side thinks of another as a heretic defiling the sacred land when they all share their roots in it - Jerusalem doesn't just solely contain ancient mosques or only ancient synagogues, it has both since the olden times.

Must be that the desertification deprives them of having fish for consumption - that lack of omega-3 probably inhibited their ability to think sensibly about and for each other.