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View Poll Results: Shin Sekai Yori - Episode 13 Rating | |||
Perfect 10 | 8 | 18.18% | |
9 out of 10 : Excellent | 10 | 22.73% | |
8 out of 10 : Very Good | 19 | 43.18% | |
7 out of 10 : Good | 5 | 11.36% | |
6 out of 10 : Average | 2 | 4.55% | |
5 out of 10 : Below Average | 0 | 0% | |
4 out of 10 : Poor | 0 | 0% | |
3 out of 10 : Bad | 0 | 0% | |
2 out of 10 : Very Bad | 0 | 0% | |
1 out of 10 : Painful | 0 | 0% | |
Voters: 44. You may not vote on this poll |
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2013-01-04, 14:53 | Link #81 | |
sleepyhead
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: event horizon
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And they wouldn't have to be completely alone, just no more then a small family.
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2013-01-04, 15:19 | Link #82 | |
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Join Date: Dec 2004
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(Apropos big cats, ep 14 made me wish the anime had made the killer kitties more cat-like... aww, kitties!) Anyway, humans are social creatures, there's a reason why every single human culture ever gravitates toward groups, and for that matter this is true not only for humans but also our nearest relatives (*cough*bonobos*cough*). We're relatively weak, slow to mature, our children are completely defenseless and unable to fend for themselves for at least 10 years (they can't even walk for a ridiculously long time!), etc. etc. etc. This is part of what makes us human. So we have a built-in need for cooperation in order for the species to survive. For that matter, how do you expect the species to survive with groups in complete isolation? Genetic diversity is pretty important, and if you want that, and don't want to go to war with the nearby families every time you feel the need to procreate, you pretty much have to cooperate. And if you're willing to do that you might as well admit it makes more sense to live in a society. |
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2013-01-04, 15:51 | Link #83 |
sleepyhead
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: event horizon
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I'm not saying I have some complete solution; what I'm saying is that the nature of their problem is centered around social interaction. You're giving me all these reasons that would apply to some really primitive human, but they're not primitive and not entirely human. Their situation is like say that of a group of tigers, since we were talking about them, that are trying to use our social system; it just doesn't work and it's waste to try and make it work. They have the power to change their very DNA should they pursue it, and just one child is able to decimate a small army, while being barely able to stand—pretty sure they'd be fine.
Even their solution is just a another version of what I described; it's application just makes it more familiar. There are sugar coated versions too, for example: what if there was a law that nobody could be near more then one other person in a range of several kilometers. Or a romantic version if you like: the entire society is focused on the warrior code and constantly fight each other, with the pupil interacting with his master or after leaving his master, his husband/wife, and nobody else. When a child is born the mother or father become their master and the other goes on their way. Better then the whole pruning for the sake of clinging to, what is in their world, an obsolete system that's just rotting away. But don't get me wrong, I'm sure if something were to happen to our society to cause the current system to become a handicap (ai, alien contact, immortality, whatnot), we would still cling hopelessly to it too, just as we cling to obsolete laws like the patent laws (created in an age were knowledge was precious and advances slow, to encourage sharing).
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2013-01-04, 17:39 | Link #85 | |||||
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Tigers can go around being solitary partly because they have evolved that way, and partly because, being animals, they have few and simple needs and not a particularly complex mind (from what we can tell, anyway). Food and water, offsprings, and surviving to produce as many offsprings as possible. Humans, though? Not really on the same level... Quote:
Btw, ep 14 has already aired, won't we get a topic for it? (I just want to post screencaps of kitties...) Last edited by kuromitsu; 2013-01-04 at 18:06. |
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2013-01-04, 18:00 | Link #86 | |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: 下北沢、東京
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We've long since moved away from the old way of thinking that laws of nature rule the universe, they are social constructs and mean little if you're isolated. Also, where is ep. 14 topic, I want to discuss the content.
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2013-01-04, 18:39 | Link #88 | |||||
sleepyhead
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Join Date: Dec 2005
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As for the whole "human civilization" argument, frankly I think we all should be a little bit more humble about it. Who's to say if history went some different way we wouldn't have seen an even more technologically and socially advanced civilization then what we have now. Quote:
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Regarding the two parts of your post I didn't answer; I'll wait and see and answer later, since I'm guessing you know something about the series itself I don't.
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2013-01-04, 20:18 | Link #89 | |||||||
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And you say "they manage to solve"... who are "they"? Again you're describing something that wouldn't happen without some sort of cooperation. |
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2013-01-04, 21:16 | Link #90 | |
sleepyhead
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: event horizon
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I think you misunderstood. I'm not saying living outside a large community would somehow not lead to karma demons and such, what I'm saying is that when the incidents would happen their effects wouldn't be nearly as severe (at least the karma demons would be somewhat contained) and fiends are less likely to happen because for them to exhibit the symptoms stress induced by a large community of people seems to be a requirement. The problem here is they are all walking nukes. Until they figure out (though more lets say "humane" means) how to live with each other with out betting their entire extinction should one of them lose it, it's much safer and worthwhile to just keep to distant relations and make only temporary contact rather then stay in a permanent large community ensuring maximum damage.
Living in a small group or traveling as nomads isn't so bad when the alternative is ritual sacrifice of sorts and potential to kill 1000 people (family, friends, etc) in one fell swoop. If they went to 2% of their population then one would assume the only reason 2% didn't go to 0% was merely because they became spaced out enough and the communities small enough to ensure they wouldn't just die in a year. If we were to scale the entire village up, how big would it have to be before it ran the risk of generating too many ticking time bombs. Given what we know of the "past" it only takes 0.2% to apparently kill 98%. As the series pointed out itself, it's not monsters, famine, or shelter that's the great enemy of humans, it's humans themselves. In their case, it's been exaggerated to the point everything else just doesn't even come close. Even if my idea of their problem is wrong, they're still too foolish to believe they are still part, or can function, by the very society they completely destroyed. Quote:
Anyway, I doubt we'll see eye to eye on this. The problem here is how we both view society, it's worth and what makes us human. To me, working together and forming large groups, has plenty to do with being human but is not what makes us unique as humans; in fact that's what most animal species do, some even completely evolved towards this—why would I thus think the fact we form large groups makes us special; in that respect ants beat us in every way.
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2013-01-04, 23:00 | Link #91 |
Snobby Gentleman
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Monterrey, México
Age: 43
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This episode offered nothing new but only reiterated the remaining childrens' suspicions that they're being targeted; at least, the children that saw the members of the Education Board releasing the nekodamashi when Shun went missing.
Definitely, Saki will be spared, that's why I honestly believe, because Satoru's grandmother got convinced that the former is so well balanced in both her mental state and manipulation of Cantus; the grandmother is going to push the strings and all influence so as to have Saki's life spared so as in a nearby future Saki inherits the grandmother's position as head of the Ethics and Virtue Comittee for the village's sake. Mamoru and the rest, definitely, as we saw in this episode they are not going to get so lucky given that they have stuck their noses too deeply into the villages' secrets; let us not forget about the incident from that summer camp two years into the past. |
2013-01-05, 15:43 | Link #92 |
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Sorry, felix, but I'm with kuromitsu on this one.
In a society where each and every human being is a walking nuclear weapon in his/her destructive capability, I would say that the two most important things by far are... 1) Properly raising/socializing children. 2) Law enforcement. And sure enough, this society focuses heavily around both of these two things. Now, what is tremendously helpful in properly raising/socializing children, and engaging in law enforcement? Social groups. To have any meaningful degree of law enforcement, you need at least a village of shared customs, laws, and/or regulations. And while I don't entirely agree with the old adage of "It takes a village to raise a child", I think that it's generally better to have many people involved in a child's raising than just a parent/legal guardian or two. If you have thousands of small families scattered about the Japanese countryside, you're going to cause the following problems: 1. Alienation. People will feel alienated from non-related peers, and hence distrustful of them. This is a natural repercussion of never really mixing with non-related peers. 2. You're pretty much begging for loads of "The Hatfields vs. The McCoys" situations. That's definitely not good. 3. Everybody is essentially "home-schooled". But not all parents have the skills and aptitudes necessary to make good teachers in addition to being good parents. So many children would suffer educationally in your proposed system, with the ultimate result being that humanity would decline even further with steadily less and less practical scientific knowledge. 4. I think you overestimate the practical capabilities of most Cantus-using humans here. We're not talking about Superman X 70,000 here. For example, it's a safe assumption that Maria can't fly (why else would she bother with the whole "hop and float, hop and float" manner of movement?) I also get the impression that Cantus-using humans have limited control over the weather (that's a pretty stark Winter everybody is dealing with in the anime right now; if there were many high-level weather controllers amongst the Cantus-users I'm inclined to think this wouldn't be the case). Taking all of this into consideration, I'm not sure if every Cantus-using human could be trusted to take care of their own basic physical needs when it comes to food, shelter, and clothing. So there remains obvious benefits to these humans continuing to organize in groups that form villages and towns. So on the whole, I think that social groups are still to humanity's benefit in the world of Shin Sekai Yori. Now, that being said, I think having widely-spread apart villages would certainly be better than having all remaining humans living in one place together. By having a dozen or more widely-spaced apart villages, you can mitigate the effects of any lone disaster. Ideally, I think it would be best if you had maybe 70 villages of approximately 1,000 people each, with these villages spread apart as much as possible. I grew up in a town of about 1,000 people, and that's enough for decent socialization, I think.
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2013-01-05, 15:57 | Link #94 | |
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If we took how the society of Shin Sekai Yori functions and put it up against your suggestion, and ran a sort of 200 year test on both approaches, I honestly think that your approach would set humanity further back than what we have right now in Shin Sekai Yori. I definitely respect where you're coming from here, but I really do think that long-term it's the less effective approach to take.
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2013-01-05, 16:23 | Link #95 |
sleepyhead
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Join Date: Dec 2005
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Is it? "Freedom" has brought more to the table then thousands of years of control ever did. And people were living in groups for generations, yet it was only when they gain some degree of freedom though either plentiful food (via something like the Neil) or some other advent, that they were ever able to achieve anything. The argument you're posing is that because they have their system they can maintain their society, but can it be considered a society while they have their system? and can it ever grow beyond their system? From my point of view it's nothing more then a very sophisticated jail, even for the "good" inhabitants. This caged bird status doesn't seem to allow for much of anything because while from a certain perspective you could say they are working together, what they really are is limited to working together in very confined group and space. I don't call that kind of system a society; it's at best a hospital. There has to be better ways of dealing with it.
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2013-01-05, 16:40 | Link #96 | |||
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What you're suggesting is little more than complete anarchy, a world that would make even Mad Max seem like a paragon of ordered society by comparison. A world like that could never create anything of lasting value, imo. Why, even basic historical records would eventually be entirely lost for most people as there would be nothing to perpetuate them in an organized fashion. At least the world of Shin Sekai Yori can speak of nuclear weapons with people not being totally flabbergasted by it. Quote:
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2013-01-05, 17:13 | Link #97 | ||
sleepyhead
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