View Single Post
Old 2013-01-21, 19:38   Link #123
Qilin
Romanticist
 
 
Join Date: Aug 2009
Age: 33
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anh_Minh View Post
I was answering the claim that "people prefer ignorance". They don't, they just aren't given the choice. Gino could have said that, since he wasn't entitled to know, he preferred not knowing. He didn't.
Let me frame this in another way: Would most people in this hypothetical society jump at the chance of learning some dark secret with the knowledge that it would significantly increase their Psycho-Pass level?

As Jean-Paul Sarte says: "Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does."

With that in mind, freedom is just as much of a burden as it is a blessing.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arya View Post
This. This is the point for me. But how would you call this? In my book this is what I call involution (as contrary of evolution). And this is what I find horrifying of the whole thing. At this point I don't care much of the means, but of the consequences of this process. What would we/they be without that thing that you call "burden"? Animals only worry about their own personal needs, so my question is, would we/they be still humans? The cost is not simply human dignity, but humanity (or part of it at least). More you think and more you will think, as much as less you think and less you will think. In PP world we are in the latter case.
Perhaps you mean devolution? I don't disagree with you. From our elevated status as the audience, I'm sure that it's easy for us to pick at the faults of the system, but the thing is, very few people are aware of it. It has already melded perfectly into the normative conventions of the society in question. As such, people are already happy with it. It's a shallow, empty sort of happiness, but it is happiness nonetheless. Now, is it advisable to trample on that fragile happiness for the sake of imposing some arbitrary standard of "humanity" or "freedom"?

This is a common theme in dystopian settings. The setting of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is one where humanity has achieved common happiness, but at the expense of personal freedom. I don't like to stand on either side of the issue, so I like to represent both sides of the issue.
__________________
Damaged Goods
"There’s an up higher than up, but at the very top, down is all there is."
Qilin is offline