Civilization has nothing to do with freedom or tolerance

How is anything spread?

Regardless this is an argument against any concept in general.

No corruption would be eliminated through careful indoctrination and engineering. After initial implementation the system would be self-sustaining as it was in Brave New World; i.e, certain classes fill certain roles and it is maintained as such.

The areas that matter would be researched; energy production, more efficient medicine, etc

"Society" would already be perfect. The only thing you could improve is technology, which would occur.

That's the idea: the survival of the human species

In the long term we could spread to other planets in order to better ensure our survival

Huh? We could do it beforehand, as simply another class. Who waits until they are attacked to form a defense?

Why is it so bad in your world? Do you object on moral grounds? What moral objections do you have? People are happy, society is structured and civilized. Is it on practical grounds? A world where reproduction is controllable and war and other issues are a thing of the past. What objection could you have?

 

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How are you going to allow any creativity without opening up pandora's box ?

Otherwise you are talking about styming everything. Like love and lust, desires.

That takes you right back to square one, individuality.

 

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People are happy now, most societies on earth are structured and civilized.

I have a lot of objections to being controlled. I don't like it.

 

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Everything would be under control, including most thought, although people would still be happy because they have no choice. And we could synthesize a drug to induce pleasure and addiction in order to ensure the people remain dependent on the system.

 

But you wouldn't know. And some people are happy........although this world is still imperfect. We could have greater structure, happiness, and efficiency at the expense of freedom, but then, what does freedom matter?

 

Yes you could get everyone hooked on a happy drug.

But your not going to create an army that way. Not a very good one at least.

Even if they are happy, allowing individuality and therefore creativity requires freedom and freewill.

How do you do allow the first without them figuring out they aren't free ?

 

Granted. But you've got to get one nation strong enough to take everyone else before you can start to implement the plan, and then you have to convince the population of that nation to give up everything they have and become drones.

But that was my point: unless you have some "unmodified" humans to look at all aspects of science/ society/ research you risk missing something and succumbing to natural disasters because thinking will be trammelled.

Uh huh. So "basic research", being deemed as inefficient and/ or unproductive would go and leave you dangling some unforeseeable time in the future. You can't KNOW what will be necessary 100 or 1,000 years from now, but your society will cut off the avenues of opportunity.

By your definition of perfect, sure. And technology improvement (other than mere refinement) comes from free-thinking, basic research and serendipity, all of which would be eliminated.

Mere survival?
How limited a concept.

Ah, so space travel is back on the list?
Basic physics research required, untrammelled thinking needed.
No constraints...

Oh, so your "perfect and efficient society" would have a soldier class sitting around doing nothing? Possibly (just possibly) forever?

Anything that restricts my thinking I object to. Anything that stops me investigating what I want to I object to.
In your world I'd somewhere near the top of the list for elimination or alteration.
I may have to start the resistance.

 

Different social classes would be conditioned and engineered in order to best fulfill their role; a warrior class could have an extra emphasis on loyalty, strength and stamina, and tactical thought while remaining docile

I never said individuality would be allowed...

Notions of greed and individuality would be removed. The people would be conditioned and engineered to believe in the collective organism.

 

Happy drones. And isn't happiness important?

A good point indeed but there is a detail that you don't realize: even though we could and likely would have to have a relatively "unmodified" human, even then certain things could be removed such as greed, and any sort of individualism or megalomania; also they could be conditioned to find the idea of freedom appalling.

Therefore they have free thought but are still bound to the collective.

What does research have to do with being free? We can pre program people to do research, i.e, understand how the world works without having to philosophize about meaningles ideals

No, computers could be made faster, medicine more potent, and systems refined. The social order could be maintained by a governing class that, as I said, is relatively unrestrained save for the safeguard (psychologically) against corruption or individual desire

Although that is the relevant concept in this thread, human civilization. The survival of human civilization is possible without freedom or tolerance, which was my initial point.

No, because again this has nothing to do with philosophy.

They'd be happy with it.

Although you wouldn't know; you wouldn't care. You'd be happy fulfilling your role for the greater good of the collective.

 

Is it?

They could be, possibly. Would they still be "human"? And can you guarantee that those things would be the only things affected?

In other words they wouldn't have free will.

How much research or design have you personally done? Speaking for myself I'd be far less effective as an engineer if I were limited in what I could and could not think about. Everything is grist to the mill.

Nope. Synergy from unrelated disciplines affects a lot areas. You can't know what will be useful until it's needed.

Oh yeah. Ask any engineer or scientist how effective someone with an MBA and no professional (discipline-based) qualification is at running an office.

Survival as insects not humans.

See above. You don't know what you' need until it's needed.

Agreed, but they'd be an inefficiency.

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Spare parts, not useful, taking up valuable resources...

I meant me NOW. You have to catch me before you start your "perfect society".

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I'm going on the notion that it is, from the arguments of a few people that initially disagreed with me in supporting fascism on the notion that there would be no happiness, although it now occured to me that there could be both happiness and efficiency.

This is up to further advances in technology. As I said such technologies, although most already exist, are in their infancy although very, very soon, I predict, we will be able to do such things.

Free will is unimportant; a limited free thought could be granted on your basis that it would be beneficial toward scientific progress although we could limit solely to scientific concepts and not philosophical concepts

See above.

No? This would be the job of the governing class. Free thought enough to the point that scientific concepts can be explored, as well as future predictions according to this information without necessarily the ability to philosophize, which would mean an inability to understand the notion of "freedom".

They would be engineered to be effective.

Survival as humans, happy, civilized humans.

Not necessarily......if not in active use they could be used for labour.

But not if you were made into this society.

 

Then where is the creativity going to come from ?

 

I doubt personally that you can have both.

In the future possibly.
Soon, I doubt.

What's the difference between philosophical and scientific? When it comes to thinking about things.

You missed the point about MBAs. Managers suck big time as anything but managers. They have no clue as to what is required for engineering or engineers (I can't speak for science/ scientists but strongly suspect it's much the same). Give me an ex-engineer who's moved "up" rather than a dickhead with an MBA and "experience of managing".

Not possible unless you adopt a very limited definition of effective.

Oh good.

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Drones.

And lose their training?

But that's the point: you have to start somewhere, sometime. And the resistance is now alerted.

 

Wow.
The first interesting thought here in awhile...

Creativity is necessarily related to individuality??

 

I believe so.

It's purely a numbers game. The more free thought allowed the wider the range of ideas.

If these people are told what they can and can not do and are not allowed to be viewed as individuals. Their entire life is structured around certain tasks.

There is no value in being different, or trying to create.

There is no need for their creations, and no appreciation for them either.

 

I'm just playing Devil's Advocate here (as always..), so....

You seem to be saying that free thought is something specific to individuals.
How would you propose to differentiate an individual from its opposite (whatever that might be..)?

How exactly is it that an individual can 'produce' (?) creatively, while its opposite (see above) cannot?


[Note: I don't want to go too offtopic here. Realistically, this in itself could be a decent thread topic...]

 

Not precisely. Free thought is specific to individualty. Not just individuals. A person, an individual can be part of a group, in Norse's world for example. They can all think the same way and come to the same conclusions all the time as instructed.

If they are not allowed to be separate and valued as separate as well as individuals within the group then you will have a conflict.

You can't have both the person who is only valued as part of the group, not allowed to create, other than for that which is valued by the group for specific purposes and a person who is given a blank canvas, free to create for themselves.

It's like comparing a person allowed to think in a straight line and a person who is free to think in circles which include the straight lines in all directions.

 

I don't see the distinction you're making.
An individual is a person. Individuality is a property.
How can a property (of a person...) be responsible for free thought, and yet the subject of that property not be??

 

The individuality of a person is separate from the individuals in a group, not the individuals themselves. It's a part of each of them but it is unique in each one.

For example. You and I and three others are in a room. We are all individuals, but we each have our own individuality.

Even though we are individuals, you may like to paint, I might like to play the guitar, one friend likes to build custom cars etc etc.

It's our unique desires and ambitions that make up our individuality. It's what separates the individuals and makes us different and unique beyond the difference in appearence.

If the desire is to make us the same, individuality will be discouraged because there is no value in it, and creativity will be suppressed.

In Norse's world there is no value in it unless it serves a specific purpose.

So what happens to the custom car builder in our friend.

 

I prefer the Paul Revere style dinner knife for spreading. I like the flintlock pistol grip and the larger surface area makes for less trips into the jar.

Could you be mor specific then?

Oh like that ever worked. People of integitry don't do "careful indoctrination and engineering" and people without integrity can't successfully do "careful indoctrination and engineering." Plus even really stupid people aren't that stupid.

You claim to be a libertarian but you can't figure this one out?