Would you release a horde of Enforcer Drones on the Earth? (RAR!)

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Would you release the Enforcer Drones onto Humanity?

Yes
6
32%
No
13
68%
 
Total votes: 19

Simon_Jester
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Re: Would you release a horde of Enforcer Drones on the Earth? (RAR!)

Post by Simon_Jester »

Q99 wrote:
Simon_Jester wrote:How can you ever claim the right to rewrite someone's thoughts, without also claiming that they are your slave?
That right only exists once that person has ended the life- and thoughts- of someone else in a premeditated fashion, or multiple times in the heat of the moment. Even then, they aren't altered to have all freedoms removed.
So we are assured.

Even people who are caught killing people still have rights. Their rights are not forfeit.
FaxModem1 wrote:But as Zor noted, widespread famine, which is preventable today due to how much excess food is produced, and modern technology, means that they are obstructing food delivery to the starving in the name of profit. And since the drones value lives more than property, that's going to lead to consequences.
Yes, but even within their rules, not the consequences of killing or re-writing. It sounds like as long as you make a good-faith effort, you're in the clear, while if you decide to withhold resources to boost margins, then you're going to have a drone set things straight.

Heck, much of the problem isn't 'obstructing,' just the proper infrastructure distribution not existing. Which seems rather out of the drone's hands.
We have no reasonable way of knowing what the drones will and will not expect people to do. They're alien robots from another planet. How much do we know about what they think constitutes 'obstruction' versus a failed good faith effort?
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madd0ct0r
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Re: Would you release a horde of Enforcer Drones on the Earth? (RAR!)

Post by madd0ct0r »

The McDonalds guy phones a drone who escorts the homeless guy to the nearer food bank or soup kitchen. After all, theft is to be prevented.
"Aid, trade, green technology and peace." - Hans Rosling.
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Re: Would you release a horde of Enforcer Drones on the Earth? (RAR!)

Post by madd0ct0r »

Simon_Jester wrote:
Q99 wrote:
Simon_Jester wrote:How can you ever claim the right to rewrite someone's thoughts, without also claiming that they are your slave?
That right only exists once that person has ended the life- and thoughts- of someone else in a premeditated fashion, or multiple times in the heat of the moment. Even then, they aren't altered to have all freedoms removed.
So we are assured.

Even people who are caught killing people still have rights. Their rights are not forfeit.
FaxModem1 wrote:But as Zor noted, widespread famine, which is preventable today due to how much excess food is produced, and modern technology, means that they are obstructing food delivery to the starving in the name of profit. And since the drones value lives more than property, that's going to lead to consequences.
Yes, but even within their rules, not the consequences of killing or re-writing. It sounds like as long as you make a good-faith effort, you're in the clear, while if you decide to withhold resources to boost margins, then you're going to have a drone set things straight.

Heck, much of the problem isn't 'obstructing,' just the proper infrastructure distribution not existing. Which seems rather out of the drone's hands.
We have no reasonable way of knowing what the drones will and will not expect people to do. They're alien robots from another planet. How much do we know about what they think constitutes 'obstruction' versus a failed good faith effort?

I thought you lived in a country with a death penalty?

I also agree with Ralin that, in my opinion, you overestimate the ability of someone to choose how they react to something traumatic like incarceration. If we truly had agency over such things, ptsd wouldn't exist and there would be far fewer Harley street practioners. Humans are a silver dollar of consciousness spinning on a table top of assumptions, inference, post hoc justification and good old lizard instinct.

Would you accept that a person could choose r head surgery or choose living in a cell with a drone watchibg them?
"Aid, trade, green technology and peace." - Hans Rosling.
"Welcome to SDN, where we can't see the forest because walking into trees repeatedly feels good, bro." - Mr Coffee
Simon_Jester
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Re: Would you release a horde of Enforcer Drones on the Earth? (RAR!)

Post by Simon_Jester »

It's not that people can just turn their reactions to an event on and off, or choose not to be affected by their experiences.

It's that normal, non-dehumanizing experiences offer a person the opportunity to evolve, reflect, and grow, rather than just being altered into the shape that suits the powerful. Insofar as prisons or other criminal punishments do not offer this opportunity, then those prisons and other institutions are flawed.

This is a fundamental part of human dignity. Once you accept the idea that it's right and proper to physically alter people's minds through surgery or similar techniques, you have made the decision that human beings are tools or objects to you. Not moral agents that must be persuaded, but simply malfunctioning pieces of equipment that must be repaired.

It baffles me that this can not be seen as presenting ethical problems.
_________________

And do I live in a country with the death penalty? Yes. And bluntly, I think the death penalty comes far closer to respecting human dignity, at least potentially, than surgical brain reprogramming does. Say what you will about condemning a person to death, at least they die as themselves. Whatever thoughts they may have, remain their own thoughts. Whatever words they say, remain their own words.

A human being can come to terms with their own death and be themselves; they cannot come to terms with having the part of them that does the thinking rewritten into a loyal minion of the state.

And afterwards, with the death penalty, there is no pretense that the person you have so fundamentally destroyed and rebuilt from the pieces... is still alive. That which the state has destroyed, it must admit to destroying. That is precisely why so many societies have abolished the death penalty- because the state cannot escape responsibility when it carries out destruction along these lines.

Whereas it's so very easy for the neural reprogrammers to stop taking responsibility for the destructive, intrusive, dehumanizing consequences of their actions. "Look, we didn't break this man, we cured him! He loves Big Brother now!"
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FireNexus
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Re: Would you release a horde of Enforcer Drones on the Earth? (RAR!)

Post by FireNexus »

The bigger thing is that there is a difference between a democratic justice system with due process and the more-or-less prison guard powers of the drones. Someone condemned to die in court has not lost their rights in the same way as someone condemned to reprogramming by an unaccountable robot overlord.

In fact, I would say that as a replacement for capital punishment, or even long-term imprisonment in a plea agreement/you can go to prison or join the army type situation, I'd be ok with the reprogramming if it was done within the confines of an accountable justice system. But we're not talking about within the confines of an accountable justice system.

The drones purport to respect local laws, yet they make no effort to respect the legal tradition of a justice system which is administered under the law agreed upon by the people who are in its jurisdiction. They don't say "we'll arrest them and bring them to human courts and serve as witnesses and even serve on juries". They at no time make any agreement to be subject to any law but their own.

That is not what a member of your society does, it is what an occupying force does. That there seems to have been no discussion of the creepy similarity between the drones and colonizers in earth's history is strange. You know who else would have claimed totally altruistic reasons for their actions in a less advanced country while being unaccountable for their actions and de facto in charge of the locals? The fucking British in India. And you'd have been a fool to make this agreement with them just because they had fancy boom sticks and whatnot.
I had a Bill Maher quote here. But fuck him for his white privelegy "joke".

All the rest? Too long.
Q99
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Re: Would you release a horde of Enforcer Drones on the Earth? (RAR!)

Post by Q99 »

Simon_Jester wrote:So we are assured.

Even people who are caught killing people still have rights. Their rights are not forfeit.
And there's a pretty solid argument to be made they have more rights under the drones. Either they're placed under watch, or altered so they won't kill.

As opposed to arrested for years/decades, or killed- which is a larger violation of one's rights than being under watch, and a greater destruction of the mind than being altered, respectively. Also, our current system is full of biases and unfairnesses which means that accurate determination often relies on factors that have nothing to do with someone's guilt.
We have no reasonable way of knowing what the drones will and will not expect people to do. They're alien robots from another planet. How much do we know about what they think constitutes 'obstruction' versus a failed good faith effort?
We have the information provided, and how they react to various things- they work with the same lines between first and second degree murder, for one.

Also, they're respecting our call to involve them or not, which is itself a good-faith offer.
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FireNexus
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Re: Would you release a horde of Enforcer Drones on the Earth? (RAR!)

Post by FireNexus »

They're respecting one person's decision. A person seemingly chosen at random and not representative of the likely diversity of opinions, for which they show no respect whatsoever. How in the holy fuck is that anywhere close to "good faith"?
I had a Bill Maher quote here. But fuck him for his white privelegy "joke".

All the rest? Too long.
Q99
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Re: Would you release a horde of Enforcer Drones on the Earth? (RAR!)

Post by Q99 »

FireNexus wrote:They're respecting one person's decision. A person seemingly chosen at random and not representative of the likely diversity of opinions, for which they show no respect whatsoever. How in the holy fuck is that anywhere close to "good faith"?
Namely, they will accept a 'no'.

If they aren't honest, then your choice doesn't matter anyway, you don't get to make a call. The scenario only exists if they are honest and willing to accept your judgement.

If we don't accept their honesty, we're basically tossing out the entire scenario. If we do, then as odd as it is, somehow we're the ones making the call and the call has meaning. The call only has meaning if they stick to what's said.
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Re: Would you release a horde of Enforcer Drones on the Earth? (RAR!)

Post by FaxModem1 »

Q99 wrote:
FireNexus wrote:They're respecting one person's decision. A person seemingly chosen at random and not representative of the likely diversity of opinions, for which they show no respect whatsoever. How in the holy fuck is that anywhere close to "good faith"?
Namely, they will accept a 'no'.

If they aren't honest, then your choice doesn't matter anyway, you don't get to make a call. The scenario only exists if they are honest and willing to accept your judgement.

If we don't accept their honesty, we're basically tossing out the entire scenario. If we do, then as odd as it is, somehow we're the ones making the call and the call has meaning. The call only has meaning if they stick to what's said.
Maybe they're like the Reach from DC comics, and can only invade a world if invited to by the world, so they have to accept a yes before they can legally invade. That way, if anyone from the Galactic cops comes by, they have a recording of a native making a legal agreement for them to take over.
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FireNexus
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Re: Would you release a horde of Enforcer Drones on the Earth? (RAR!)

Post by FireNexus »

Q99 wrote:
FireNexus wrote:They're respecting one person's decision. A person seemingly chosen at random and not representative of the likely diversity of opinions, for which they show no respect whatsoever. How in the holy fuck is that anywhere close to "good faith"?
Namely, they will accept a 'no'.
They will accept the decision of a random person with whom they have arbitrarily invested the power to override the the will of literally the entire rest of the human race. When dealing with seven billion people and choosing seemingly at random one of them to make a binding and irreversible decision to completely otherthrow their legal and power structures is not in good faith. It is in no way respecting "our" decision to involve them. Because "we" don't get a say in a way that respects the consensus.
If they aren't honest, then your choice doesn't matter anyway, you don't get to make a call. The scenario only exists if they are honest and willing to accept your judgement.
Even if they are honest about that, their assignment of this decision to me is extremely fishy. That judgement alone makes me question their benevolence and competence to be in charge of trials even if everything they say is technically true.
If we don't accept their honesty, we're basically tossing out the entire scenario. If we do, then as odd as it is, somehow we're the ones making the call and the call has meaning. The call only has meaning if they stick to what's said.
Even if we accept their honesty on everything, the way in which they determine whether to intervene indicates that they do not in any way respect the wishes of "humanity" because "humanity" would probably like to be consulted. And they're doing that in a way that seems like letter of the law weaseling around a restriction on their activities.
I had a Bill Maher quote here. But fuck him for his white privelegy "joke".

All the rest? Too long.
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