Hexen
11th September 2011, 14:22
There was another discussion (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.shadownessence.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=31541&view=findpost&p=465567) over at the Shadownessence forum (which is a World of Darkness forum and this particular one is from a Mage: the Ascension sub-forum) talking about the same video....
[quote name='the giant mantis' date='11 June 2009 - 03:42 PM' timestamp='1244756528' post='465567']
Anyone remember Deus Ex 2?
zeboqg4t9vs
Somehow, this always struck me as a very Technocratic ending.. I've had massive arguments with people over whether living in such a system would be completely monstrous or utterly awesome, and it's very hard to give a simple answer.
There's a brilliant line in that game, 'I have no enemies, only a topography of ignorance.' It's not that the Technocrats are arbitrarily enforcing their paradigm as some manipulative gesture to keep everyone under control.. They're enforcing it because it's true, and those who refuse to recognize it are backwards, or ignorant, or even just dangerously deluded. Biopower is not Marxist power.. There doesn't have to be a super secret conspiracy of social elites trying to oppress everyone. People enforce themselves already through notions of truth, they don't even <i>need</i> to be told what to do providing the underlying logic is there to always ensure they do the right thing anyway.
My thoughts have always been that the Technocratic paradigm is based on the idea of one singular, coherent truth. It's not even about 'magic' or the 'supernatural' (which are themselves secular Western concepts anyway, if you actually believe in these things the words don't really have much neccessity) it's about connecting people's ideas together into a coherent framework of stable truth. Science, modernity, centralization, collectivism.. whatever you want to call it, it's about allowing people to function together rather than staying in their own little belief systems and being unable to interact with anyone on the outside.
Yes, it's biopower.. But you're misunderstanding. Biopower isn't bad.. It's inescapable. It would happen no matter how hard you tried to get rid of it. Power is the only thing that makes any kind of human agency, even resistance or change, possible.
The basis of modern society isn't capitalism, it's collectivism and universality.. That was what the Renaissance (and then the Enlightenment) promised people. To me, that's what the technocracy is about. It's not about oppressing people, it's about homogenizing them, removing the grounds on which they can fight each other or oppress each other so they can live harmoniously together with one vision of the truth to guide them. That's not a bad goal.. maybe it's not a good goal either, but it's certainly not lacking in good intentions.
In short.. I don't understand why the technocracy are so bad. They're kinda manipulative and assholish on an individual level, sure, but then the traditions don't generally come out much better.
(Plus it's possible to actually envisage yourself living in the technocratic future.. Living in a world where the paranoid schitzophrenic next door <i>is actually right</i> and park benches really are stalking you and trying to kill you sounds a bit terrifying.)
And you know this how? Actually an AI system makes a lot of sense. Marx suggested that improved technology (industrial revolution) and systems (capitalism) had fundamentally changed things. It makes a certain kind of sense that to change it further would require more technological change.
Further, actually that AI does create your egalitarian society. Pretty mcuh limitless access to information and resources for everyone.
Yeah.. It's worth explaining what actually happens in that ending.
Basically, the goal of the Helios AI is to expand itself and to overcome the flaws of being a cybernetic entity. To that end, it merges with a guy called JC Denton in the first game, because his nanotech implants allow him to interface with it. It's not a master/servant relationship, there is no distinction between Helios and Denton.
Basically, that ending is the same thing process applied to everyone on earth.. Helios is linked to every human being, and thus there is no more need of 'general law.' Every human being has individual opinions, but they are also linked to the overarching consensus which understands and takes into account their personal opinions, thus governing with 'perfect wisdom'.. As mentioned, there is no need for 'enslavement' as the work economy has been automated, labour is now a redundant concept. Humans are now free to think and research. If anyone's enslaved, they're enslaved to everyone else whose opinions and ideas they now have to account for.. woe is them.
Denton sums it up at one point.. The reason for authority is that all societies take as their foundation that human nature requires control. You need some kind of check on the power and ambition of individuals or they'll run riot. However, if you change human nature, elevate everyone to the same state, provide them with infinate knowledge and equalize their physical capability through nano-augmentation then you no longer need to control anyone as there's no longer any ground anyone could gain on anyone else. Better, by giving people awareness of each other, by encouraging to open their minds to others, then the needs (individual needs) of everyone can be taken into account by society at large.
I'm not a Marxist, and I didn't really mean to talk about Marxism, but does anything actually solve that problem? Without authority, how do you restrict the ambitions of individuals? How do you stop people fucking each other over without oppressing them in the process? Let's face it, some people will always be smarter, or more attractive, or stronger, and they can use those talents to gain an advantage over those who lack them.. Why shouldn't they, after all. You'd have to take a position of authority in order to stop them. Frankly, Marx was so obsessed with conflict between classes he never actually stopped to work out that class is really quite fluid.. There aren't just a preset pool of 'elites' who, once you kill, everything will be happy. Elite groups form from natural human interaction, and the only way to stop that is to keep the people who might become elites down (i.e. oppress them.)
It's a complete logic failure to me..
Capitalism is a system, not a class. The economically disenfranchised are either trying to overthrow the entire system that they themselves are part of (Marxist revolutionaries) or reduce the wealth gap (socialist economics). It's a distinction that's less trivial than it seems, because by and large, in capitalist societies, people want to keep the system; the insidious bit about capitalism is that it constantly tantalizes the lower classes with possibility. "Look at this executive here - you could be rich like that someday!" Money, wealth, property, and power have all been around for a looonnng time, and "true" Marxism/communism generally only works on extremely small scales where everyone can preserve their cooperative ideals (kibbutzes), or on large scales when you enforce it with terror, murder, and authoritarian lunacy (Stalin). So people who don't want either of those (and most people don't), and/or just want to screw the guy with the money, find alternate routes that don't involve sidestepping the system.
Anyway, who says that class is purely predicated on economics? History has shown us religious elites, intellectual elites, family elites, skill-based elites, and more. Unless you have a genepunk future where everyone has the exact same intelligence level, skill sets, drives and goals, physical homogeneity, and life experience, there will always be variation. Someone will just be dumber than the next guy, and in certain systems, will be ostracized; someone may have the strength of a large family with many connections to propel them further and faster.
I hate to say it..
Marx was a social scientist.. His writing pretty much embodies the Enlightenment tradition of social science in that he quite shamelessly takes 'man' as a unified object of study (the foundation of social science is that there is this thing which can be studied, and which follows the same rules - a.k.a 'human nature'.)
I'm really raping the popular media today, but there's a quote from the film 'Enemy at the Gates.'
QUOTE
Man will always be a man. There is no new man. We tried so hard to create a society that was equal, where there'd be nothing to envy your neighbour. But there's always something to envy. A smile, a friendship, something you don't have and want to appropriate. In this world, even a Soviet one, there will always be rich and poor.
The problem with Marx is that he started at the top.. It's easy to talk about this fictional 'man' (plural) subject and describe how billions of people are meant to live and work together because you don't actually have to deal with them as people with their idiosyncracies and irrationalties and silly human dramas. That's my problem with Marx.. Theory should work even in the most intimate cases, otherwise it's just flawed. Until you can deal with the guy who is jealous because he wants to sleep with his neighbours wife, how are you meant to equalize the classes and create a bold new future?
There are grounds for human conflict and ambition which go beyond the simple materialistic/financial structures Marx was using. People are more than just cogs in a financial system, the things they want, the ideas they hold and the differences between can't just be rationalized away by attributing everything to capitalist exploitation. Why expect everyone to be similar enough to work together harmoniously without any kind of prompting or restriction.. Why should they have to be? Is it important that they are? Most importantly, what happens if you're wrong and they're actually not?
But meh..
I feel this is going slightly off topic. My point was - in what way is the Technocracy actually any worse than the traditions? Assuming the traditions won the Ascention war, what would the world look like - because I can't really see how it would be a nicer place to live than the Technocratic unity. I used the Helios example to illustrate a Technocratic-esque Ascention scenario which couldn't just be written off as exploitative or oppressive.
.Communism/Socialism, in practice, ALWAYS eventually leads to Mao/Stalin. We would need an unselfish AI to manage the functions of bueracracy because though most people want to do good, there are a few who don't and they can make most people rationalize doing wrong in the interest of self preservation. Such individuals seem to be good at manipulating others and getting their way.
(SPOILER alert)
At an earlier point in that game, JC Denton mentions that it is his plan to "address the flaws in human nature" in order to prevent this. The optimist-fantasist in me says this leads to a posthuman minarchist utopia that is Post-Economic rather than capitalistic - we can just make whatever we need or want out of ubiqutous nanomachines, have no more need for politics, everyone is Superman and, having resolved world strife and conflict, can devote our intellects and efforts to tackling the mysteries of the universe. The few "bad people" I mentioned earlier would be the "Unhappy Few" that JC's brother Paul mentions near the end of the game. No one would have any reason to listen to them.
Of course if you played the original game, it's possible that Helios is really, in fact, Icarus and has been playing JC Denton for a fool this whole time, or that the promises were lies, etc etc. The other endings are equally hard to judge. The Templars are Jackbooted Facists, but could be overthrown. Humanity could come to embrace Denton's idea as a reaction to the Templars. The Illuminati ending seems like a less physically intrusive but less amazing version of the Denton ending. And the Omar ending features a ravaged earth, but promises that "The glory of humanity will stretch on to the vanishing point of infinity."
Is there anyway to respond to all this? Note this is a Mage: The Ascension discussion which at the time I was suggesting about Technocrats that has socialist/communist goals and this was brought up.
[quote name='the giant mantis' date='11 June 2009 - 03:42 PM' timestamp='1244756528' post='465567']
Anyone remember Deus Ex 2?
zeboqg4t9vs
Somehow, this always struck me as a very Technocratic ending.. I've had massive arguments with people over whether living in such a system would be completely monstrous or utterly awesome, and it's very hard to give a simple answer.
There's a brilliant line in that game, 'I have no enemies, only a topography of ignorance.' It's not that the Technocrats are arbitrarily enforcing their paradigm as some manipulative gesture to keep everyone under control.. They're enforcing it because it's true, and those who refuse to recognize it are backwards, or ignorant, or even just dangerously deluded. Biopower is not Marxist power.. There doesn't have to be a super secret conspiracy of social elites trying to oppress everyone. People enforce themselves already through notions of truth, they don't even <i>need</i> to be told what to do providing the underlying logic is there to always ensure they do the right thing anyway.
My thoughts have always been that the Technocratic paradigm is based on the idea of one singular, coherent truth. It's not even about 'magic' or the 'supernatural' (which are themselves secular Western concepts anyway, if you actually believe in these things the words don't really have much neccessity) it's about connecting people's ideas together into a coherent framework of stable truth. Science, modernity, centralization, collectivism.. whatever you want to call it, it's about allowing people to function together rather than staying in their own little belief systems and being unable to interact with anyone on the outside.
Yes, it's biopower.. But you're misunderstanding. Biopower isn't bad.. It's inescapable. It would happen no matter how hard you tried to get rid of it. Power is the only thing that makes any kind of human agency, even resistance or change, possible.
The basis of modern society isn't capitalism, it's collectivism and universality.. That was what the Renaissance (and then the Enlightenment) promised people. To me, that's what the technocracy is about. It's not about oppressing people, it's about homogenizing them, removing the grounds on which they can fight each other or oppress each other so they can live harmoniously together with one vision of the truth to guide them. That's not a bad goal.. maybe it's not a good goal either, but it's certainly not lacking in good intentions.
In short.. I don't understand why the technocracy are so bad. They're kinda manipulative and assholish on an individual level, sure, but then the traditions don't generally come out much better.
(Plus it's possible to actually envisage yourself living in the technocratic future.. Living in a world where the paranoid schitzophrenic next door <i>is actually right</i> and park benches really are stalking you and trying to kill you sounds a bit terrifying.)
And you know this how? Actually an AI system makes a lot of sense. Marx suggested that improved technology (industrial revolution) and systems (capitalism) had fundamentally changed things. It makes a certain kind of sense that to change it further would require more technological change.
Further, actually that AI does create your egalitarian society. Pretty mcuh limitless access to information and resources for everyone.
Yeah.. It's worth explaining what actually happens in that ending.
Basically, the goal of the Helios AI is to expand itself and to overcome the flaws of being a cybernetic entity. To that end, it merges with a guy called JC Denton in the first game, because his nanotech implants allow him to interface with it. It's not a master/servant relationship, there is no distinction between Helios and Denton.
Basically, that ending is the same thing process applied to everyone on earth.. Helios is linked to every human being, and thus there is no more need of 'general law.' Every human being has individual opinions, but they are also linked to the overarching consensus which understands and takes into account their personal opinions, thus governing with 'perfect wisdom'.. As mentioned, there is no need for 'enslavement' as the work economy has been automated, labour is now a redundant concept. Humans are now free to think and research. If anyone's enslaved, they're enslaved to everyone else whose opinions and ideas they now have to account for.. woe is them.
Denton sums it up at one point.. The reason for authority is that all societies take as their foundation that human nature requires control. You need some kind of check on the power and ambition of individuals or they'll run riot. However, if you change human nature, elevate everyone to the same state, provide them with infinate knowledge and equalize their physical capability through nano-augmentation then you no longer need to control anyone as there's no longer any ground anyone could gain on anyone else. Better, by giving people awareness of each other, by encouraging to open their minds to others, then the needs (individual needs) of everyone can be taken into account by society at large.
I'm not a Marxist, and I didn't really mean to talk about Marxism, but does anything actually solve that problem? Without authority, how do you restrict the ambitions of individuals? How do you stop people fucking each other over without oppressing them in the process? Let's face it, some people will always be smarter, or more attractive, or stronger, and they can use those talents to gain an advantage over those who lack them.. Why shouldn't they, after all. You'd have to take a position of authority in order to stop them. Frankly, Marx was so obsessed with conflict between classes he never actually stopped to work out that class is really quite fluid.. There aren't just a preset pool of 'elites' who, once you kill, everything will be happy. Elite groups form from natural human interaction, and the only way to stop that is to keep the people who might become elites down (i.e. oppress them.)
It's a complete logic failure to me..
Capitalism is a system, not a class. The economically disenfranchised are either trying to overthrow the entire system that they themselves are part of (Marxist revolutionaries) or reduce the wealth gap (socialist economics). It's a distinction that's less trivial than it seems, because by and large, in capitalist societies, people want to keep the system; the insidious bit about capitalism is that it constantly tantalizes the lower classes with possibility. "Look at this executive here - you could be rich like that someday!" Money, wealth, property, and power have all been around for a looonnng time, and "true" Marxism/communism generally only works on extremely small scales where everyone can preserve their cooperative ideals (kibbutzes), or on large scales when you enforce it with terror, murder, and authoritarian lunacy (Stalin). So people who don't want either of those (and most people don't), and/or just want to screw the guy with the money, find alternate routes that don't involve sidestepping the system.
Anyway, who says that class is purely predicated on economics? History has shown us religious elites, intellectual elites, family elites, skill-based elites, and more. Unless you have a genepunk future where everyone has the exact same intelligence level, skill sets, drives and goals, physical homogeneity, and life experience, there will always be variation. Someone will just be dumber than the next guy, and in certain systems, will be ostracized; someone may have the strength of a large family with many connections to propel them further and faster.
I hate to say it..
Marx was a social scientist.. His writing pretty much embodies the Enlightenment tradition of social science in that he quite shamelessly takes 'man' as a unified object of study (the foundation of social science is that there is this thing which can be studied, and which follows the same rules - a.k.a 'human nature'.)
I'm really raping the popular media today, but there's a quote from the film 'Enemy at the Gates.'
QUOTE
Man will always be a man. There is no new man. We tried so hard to create a society that was equal, where there'd be nothing to envy your neighbour. But there's always something to envy. A smile, a friendship, something you don't have and want to appropriate. In this world, even a Soviet one, there will always be rich and poor.
The problem with Marx is that he started at the top.. It's easy to talk about this fictional 'man' (plural) subject and describe how billions of people are meant to live and work together because you don't actually have to deal with them as people with their idiosyncracies and irrationalties and silly human dramas. That's my problem with Marx.. Theory should work even in the most intimate cases, otherwise it's just flawed. Until you can deal with the guy who is jealous because he wants to sleep with his neighbours wife, how are you meant to equalize the classes and create a bold new future?
There are grounds for human conflict and ambition which go beyond the simple materialistic/financial structures Marx was using. People are more than just cogs in a financial system, the things they want, the ideas they hold and the differences between can't just be rationalized away by attributing everything to capitalist exploitation. Why expect everyone to be similar enough to work together harmoniously without any kind of prompting or restriction.. Why should they have to be? Is it important that they are? Most importantly, what happens if you're wrong and they're actually not?
But meh..
I feel this is going slightly off topic. My point was - in what way is the Technocracy actually any worse than the traditions? Assuming the traditions won the Ascention war, what would the world look like - because I can't really see how it would be a nicer place to live than the Technocratic unity. I used the Helios example to illustrate a Technocratic-esque Ascention scenario which couldn't just be written off as exploitative or oppressive.
.Communism/Socialism, in practice, ALWAYS eventually leads to Mao/Stalin. We would need an unselfish AI to manage the functions of bueracracy because though most people want to do good, there are a few who don't and they can make most people rationalize doing wrong in the interest of self preservation. Such individuals seem to be good at manipulating others and getting their way.
(SPOILER alert)
At an earlier point in that game, JC Denton mentions that it is his plan to "address the flaws in human nature" in order to prevent this. The optimist-fantasist in me says this leads to a posthuman minarchist utopia that is Post-Economic rather than capitalistic - we can just make whatever we need or want out of ubiqutous nanomachines, have no more need for politics, everyone is Superman and, having resolved world strife and conflict, can devote our intellects and efforts to tackling the mysteries of the universe. The few "bad people" I mentioned earlier would be the "Unhappy Few" that JC's brother Paul mentions near the end of the game. No one would have any reason to listen to them.
Of course if you played the original game, it's possible that Helios is really, in fact, Icarus and has been playing JC Denton for a fool this whole time, or that the promises were lies, etc etc. The other endings are equally hard to judge. The Templars are Jackbooted Facists, but could be overthrown. Humanity could come to embrace Denton's idea as a reaction to the Templars. The Illuminati ending seems like a less physically intrusive but less amazing version of the Denton ending. And the Omar ending features a ravaged earth, but promises that "The glory of humanity will stretch on to the vanishing point of infinity."
Is there anyway to respond to all this? Note this is a Mage: The Ascension discussion which at the time I was suggesting about Technocrats that has socialist/communist goals and this was brought up.