The "I'm Bored" Conversation Thread

[Rigwyn]

Dumb question. Does the idea of exploring space pique your curiosity or is it just the idea of being stuck on a space ship with lots of people to converse with that floats your boat?

[Illysia]

Both, but as I learned while studying my major. I don't care about squat until you land again. Don't get me wrong, stars and nebulae are nice and all, but I'm more of a terrestrial person myself. I love geology, biology, botany and things like that, but I couldn't care less what frequencies of light are emitted from a star, or our bodies for that matter. I rather hated those last two calculations. :/

But even a fairly rocky barren planet would intrigue me more than just floating around in the great out there.

[Rigwyn]

What would be an ideal find for you?   

Given a scenario where you have no technological barriers, you are exploring and you suddenly find something awesome.  What might it be?

[Illysia]

Ideal find is an up and running civilization. I favor interaction over scientific inquiry, not that there isn't overlap. But, I prefer to talk with people to look for different perspectives and ideas. After all, that's how you learn and expand.

I've always been of the opinion that humanity is an ultimately social species, and that is our problem, we are too alone right now. Once we come in contact with others, we will have something else to focus on besides how much we irritate each other and it would ultimately bring out the good in us.

It's a common theme in sci fi. I always figured that was because in the face of someone truly different, we'd realize how much the same we are and that natural human tendency to pull together with "like" people could be harnessed for good. But at the same time, seeing others would constantly remind of us of our own failings, especially if we were to come around many other species, and in our need to tell everyone else were they are screwing up we'd have to tighten up ourselves so that we could sit properly upon our mighty high horse... er.. *cough* steed.

Not that there wouldn't still be bad elements to human society but getting exposure could both give us a whiff of ourselves and give us a sense of purpose that could be harnessed for good. After all, what's the likelihood that we'd all of a sudden develop a sense of minding our own business?

[Rigwyn]

Say you found in incredibly intriguing alien... ( or native, from its perspective),  what might it be like? How much differently might it think?

I've often entertained that idea... how differently might an alien species think? In what ways might its reasoning and logic differ.

[Illysia]

Depends really, the possibilities are infinite. However, you might be more interested in the concept of an alien with a blue and orage morality (as opposed to black and white). That is an alien that isn't necessarily evil but their sense of what is right and wrong lies on such a different axis that it has no real place within our normal sliding scale of morality.

For instance, for them, killing might be wrong if you kill without in some way replace the person that was killed so that the loss is "negligible", but as long as you have provided someone or something to take it's place you're golden for being such a considerate person. And in this scenario, the method of killing is entirely irrelevant to the discussion.

I imaging that blue and orange morality applies outside of killing easily but that is the most dramatic and easily illustrated scenario.

I think an alien that I would be more interested in would be aliens with alternate, but still harmonious social structures. One of my favorite fictional races is the Perseids from Andromeda. They are so kooky and strange but at the same time adorable, to me at least. They don't have intimate social interactions like we do so friends are a foreign concept to them and even mating is not terribly intimate. They get each other pregnant and then turn the children over to the state to be raised and placed in society. I believe that parents only maintain nominal connection to the children, it's a highly bureaucratic society.

However, that doesn't mean they are anti social. They interact with other species and they aren't socially inept per se but I think certain quirks that are more common in other species eludes/is unimportant to them. For instance they have a habit of being brutally honest but not necessarily to be mean. Yes, they just told you that they "understand the limits of your primative intellect," but they weren't being mean so much as making a statement of fact. they might have even been attempting sympathy, graciousness, or helpfulness. As you can imagine this makes them rather trying to other races.

[Rigwyn]

They get each other pregnant and then turn the children over to the state to be raised and placed in society. I believe that parents only maintain nominal connection to the children, it's a highly bureaucratic society.

Sounds like they might have something in common with Warren Jeffs.   

This idea of blue and orange morality is interesting. You could easily have an individual with very different morality or a secluded village with such morality. Likewise, a character who lives by very different rules could provide some rather interesting interactions.

One of the things I stongly dislike about star trek is some of the non-humanoid alien races. For me, it breaks immersion when I see characters with lumps of play dough on their face.

[Illysia]

Nah, I'm pretty sure the Perseids are all old enough and choose their own mates.

However, blue and orange morality typically leads to grave misunderstandings and wars due to each side assuming they are playing by the same rules and the other side keeps being a pain in the rear and breaking them. But it can definitely exist in non sci fi settings as well.

I don't mind the rubber ridges as the appearance is less important to me and sometimes I like those little rubber ridges. I don't like the original Klingons so much but I like the TNG Klingons just fine and I think the nose ridges on Bajorans are adorable.

But my main focus with sci fi is almost always the people, the social situation, the way that the people interact in other ways such as trade or governemental interactions. I like it when species take certain issues and more or less isolate them so that you can examine the impact that those particular sets of issues have. For instance, klingons and courtship. During courtship the normally very aggressive klingon male actually softens up in certain ways to court a female, often risking life and limb to recite poetry to her while she is hurling very large/heavy/hurtful things at him. But at the same time, if a klingon male just walks up to a klingon woman and pops her dead in the jaw, that could signal the begining of courtship. Both sexes find aggressive/assertive behavoir attractive. Now imagine how all of that would play out in a human context. Also they seem to be fond of poetry and opera. They really like Shakespeare, go figure.

Or in Andromeda, the Than (species) are sapient bugs. That being said they have a hive like societal structure, there are castes which are determined at birth (by color which mean Than are color coded for your convenience ), and they have ridiculously large families. Mating is communal I guess you could say since many adults of the necessary sexes will come together as a breeding group and everything gets mixed up in a common pit so that it is usually unclear who the exact parents are. However, it doesn't matter as all the children are raised by all the adults who are all considered equal parents and there are easily like 10,000 siblings or something ridiculous like that to a batch who are all considered full siblings. Not to mention the complex family connections once you get into siblings from other breeding sessions, extended family, and so on. This is why the Than say Humans pursue love so desperately. It's because we are so lonely due to having so few people in our lives. Now if that all isn't freaky enough for you, wrap your mind around this one. There are Humans that live in Than contexts and the human proceed to organize themselves in Than like social structures as well... and I always got the impression that they also managed to more or less imitate the breeding system... I do not want to contemplate how they went about that.

Overall, I like to see how people use fictional settings to organize people.

[Rigwyn]

Even though religions and cults are exactly the same, cults are always conveniently stuck into the "them" group. Coinkydink? I think not.

[Illysia]

Not all religions have you drinking poison kool-aid and laying out somewhere. Largely it slides into cult status once it slides over into killing all your members or all your members going out and killing other people.

[Rigwyn]

Well, a good question to ask is, what exactly is a cult. Or perhaps a more appropriate question is, what characteristics do cults tend to have? Here's one organization's list of characteristics. Note that not all of these need to be present to indicate that a religious group may be cult-like.

   1. Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.

   2.   No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.

   3.   No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget, expenses such as an independently audited financial statement.

   4.   Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions.

   5.   There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.

   6.   Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances.

   7.   There are records, books, news articles, or television programs that document the abuses of the group/leader.

   8.   Followers feel they can never be "good enough".

   9.   The group/leader is always right.

  10.   The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.

[Illysia]

Fair enough, but that is really good description of well any human "organization" that gets too insular.  To be honest, I spent the whole time reading that list thinking corporate america/businesses.

Probably applies also to politics, education, social clubs, etc. :/

A sad commentary on the nastier side of human nature. But, that is what I was talking about earlier. I always thought coming in contact with other species would help weed some of that stuff out since that revelation would blow the lid off a lot of petty little scams and worldviews.

[Rigwyn]

A better and more detailed list, I found here:  http://www.prem-rawat-talk.org/forum/uploads/CultCharacteristics.htm

I think what is important is not so much the exact list, but understanding the reasons why many folks would deem these characteristics as dishonest, manipulative or shady. When one is brought up in such a setting, they percieve these characteristics as normal. It is their norm by which they measure the rest of the world.

I agree with you in that we see these characteristics in many places. You may see some in your own family, place of work, religion, school or whatever.  I think that seeing a few of these earmarks is one thing, but seeing a lot of them is another.

What's interesting about your idea of orange and blue morality is where it goes when group A and group B finally realize that their own personal morality is not universal, but rather local. I see a lot of good in that sort of conflict as it could lead to a more universal understanding of morality.

[Illysia]

Well it is shady and manipulative because it is. You look at those same behaviors in a different, detached context and you can generally see your underlying feeling on the matter. But the thing that I've learned about such earmarks is that, often, where you find a few the rest are merely lurking since there is always someone that will take things a step further and a step further. Keep looking, you'll see others eventually. The thing you have to make your mind up about then is: Is this reflective of the people(change the people you interact with and the problem goes away) or or the organizational structure(built in will manifest in any context), is this dangerously harmful, is whatever this is connected to really worth it to me/what I want?


Also, there are two issues with the universal morality thing. Without an ultimate standard of morality, that idea falls flat in a writhing, morphing mass of infinite moralities. Two, that's the whole point for a god or head god. Somebody's got to be in charge and you know no one is going to just let some human standing on their own authority tell them what to, so... square one.

I see the possibility of a moral free-for-all as very dangerous though. Look how much screwing up happens once we half way agree to a standard, just take secular laws, now toss in infinite chaos. If everyone could be mindful, mature, respectful, and noble in their dealings then maybe it wouldn't be as bad... but take a look at the news and judge the likelihood of such a miracle. It's herding cats to try to corral the human tendency towards dissent and trouble. Thus why cults/dictatorships and such will always crop up given a chance. a strong arm technique is always seen as the efficient way of dealing with the problem.

[Rigwyn]

Also, there are two issues with the universal morality thing. Without an ultimate standard of morality, that idea falls flat in a writhing, morphing mass of infinite moralities. Two, that's the whole point for a god or head god. Somebody's got to be in charge and you know no one is going to just let some human standing on their own authority tell them what to, so... square one.

So when human authority does not get you what you want, you create god-puppet. Teach people that the god-puppet is real and they will obey it. Put words in its mouth, and they will obey those words. If they disobey, punish them so that the rest of the community might not bear the weight of their disobedience. Now, when you need more authority to get things done, you work the god-puppet and people will do as you wish because they fear the god-puppet.

Look at the middle east conflict. There are three major political groups that are using their god-puppet to argue that they own a piece of land.  Kind of silly, isn't it?

As for being dangerous, I would include healthy or harmful in that evaluation. What happens when a relatively benign religious organization takes a position on what medical procedures a person may have?  What If they insist that a person may not receive a blood transfusion or operation that is needed to prevent them from dying? Its not a big deal until you or a loved one needs that procedure.

As for dangerous organization vs dangerous people, yes I agree. You can't judge an entire organization by a few wacko members.