Edfilho said:
GeeBot said:
Any action required for the survival of the human race is morally justifiable. You might disagree with that, but then you're extinct and the folks who survive get to make the rules.
These actions might be justified, but who is to decide? So, if one day I, Edmo, decide that killing everyone north of the equator is the only way to save the human race, and for some quirk of the destiny, I have the power to do so, would I be right??
Well, obviously, you can claim anything you want, but the keyword here is "required". That said, I think you'd be right to wipe out everyone north of the equator if it truly was necessary, or in any event, if you truly believed[/i] it was necessary, and there wasn't any reason to think you were wrong. In such a case, better to do the hard thing and kill everyone, rather than wait and see if some plague kills off the rest of humanity.
It's basically a risk-reward computation: yes, maybe we might find a cure, and mass homicide is unnecessary. However, if the chances of developing such a cure are outweighed by the chances for human extinction, then it is not only preferrable, but morally required that one choose (to paraphrase Spock) to save the many than the one, or the few. It's cold, and there's something just plain wrong about it, but humanity won't get very far if it's
never willing to make a hard choice.
In the end, history will be your judge. The United States dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese cities, killing hundreds of thousands in an action which remains
extremely controversial (personally, I don't think it was necessary or right); in the final analysis, though, the US has never been punished for taking that action (and I think it's doubtful it ever will be, regardless of what happens in the future), and it remains the pre-eminent world power. The winners write the history books, as they say. Doesn't it seem a little strange that the "evil" people never win in the long run? Either this means humanity has always been a lot more rational than most people give it credit for, or the "good" people win by definition.
I think it's probably a matter of our values being shaped by the past; I can even imagine (quite easily) that if Hitler had won WW2, and succeeded in exterminating the Jews, the vast majority of people would eventually become convinced that it had been a good idea; after all, who'd protest in their favor? What evidence would there be the contrary? People tend to have short memories. If people did eventually change their mind, it'd have to be because there's something so fundamentally objectionable about genocide that the objective facts could not be denied. And for genocide to be objectionable, you have to have a rapport with the victims; few people take enough time to reflect and be sorry about killing off the dodos--we might feel the same way about a suitably alien species, even a sentient one, and have no compunction about exterminating them to preserve the human race.
Now just transport yourself back to the early 20th century, when we weren't so enlightened about the one-ness of humanity, and imagine what people might think about such "alien" races. Indeed, at the time, nobody really gave much thought to the plight of the Jews, until the full reality of what had happened spread. And the United States was guilty of a nearly genocidal rage against the Japanese following Pearl Harbor, although to the credit of the democratic system, the US government ultimately didn't follow through with the popular sentiment to the final conclusion.
To return to Wing Commander: Heck, isn't Confed's eventual goal wiping Nephilim? Assuming that the Nephilim are truly impossible to co-exist with, and assuming Confed wins the war, won't we end up exterminating a sentient species in the name of human survival? And (in the hypothetical case that EA/Origin ever finishes what they started) won't we be cheering along with the crew in the final cutscene, as the alien homeworld explodes, wiping out the very last bug? Didn't we do that very thing when Kilrah went up as a cloud of magma? Isn't
that genocide?
*start edit*
I realize this is a controversial topic, and we're not going to agree about it, and heck, I'll probably even be vilified for taking such a Machiavellian viewpoint. In my defense, I don't live my life this way; I share all those warm and fuzzy values as everyone else. But I'm trying to approach this question rationally, with complete honesty: when push comes to shove, what would I do if my survival was threatened? What if the survival of the
whole human race was threatened? Is it better to let oneself be happily slaughtered by an aggressor because you don't believe that "force ever solves anything"?
I don't think anyone can really answer that question until they've truly been in it; humanity has never been put in a situation remotely like the Terran-Kilrathi War, where extermination was not only a possibility, it was the
most likely possibility.
Probably one of the most dangerous things you can lead yourself to believe is that the world is a safe and happy place that respects the rights of those who object. Freedom isn't free; we only have it in some very limited portions of the world because some people were willing to die for it so that the rest of us could enjoy it in peace. The rights of individuals is a concept that only dates back to the Enlightenment, and is far from universal.
On a more personal note, I think recent events only reinforces that; what I get upset with the most is how the rest of the world seems to treat terrorism as only the American's problem, since the Americans are the target; that somehow, Americans deserve to be the target. And that if you just hide your head and don't take any risks, you won't draw the attention of the terrorists by provoking them somehow, and everything will be OK for you. This is exactly the sort of attitude that prevailed in the United States before September 11th; the sort of attitude we have now isn't thoughtless over-reaction, it's a greater awareness of the true state of the world beyond our borders. The tragedy is that it shouldn't take September 11ths all over the world for other people to learn that.
*end edit*
Edfilho said:
GeeBot said:
As for covering up being non-democratic... it's a fallacy to think that democracies can not keep secrets. Democracies can wage war, or take morally questionable actions--indeed, sometimes it seems like democracies are more capable of taking ruthless action than many dictatorships. I think American history in the 20th century is a good example of this.
Yes, the US did some very bad things lately, and I do believe it's not really democratic to do so. One thing is to keep the Temblor bomb secret, the other is to wage a war without telling the people. The population has the right to know. They are not children. Patronizing the people is a trait of totalitarism. A true democracy has strong and enlightend citizens.
I think saying the US has done some "very bad things lately" is pushing it a bit. Personally, I think invading Iraq was a good thing, if only because it got rid of Saddam Hussein--I don't give a wooden nickle whether it was bad because the UN didn't say we could do it, or whether it's because we want to colonize Iraq and steal all its oil (that'd probably still be better than Hussein running the place, but I digress--incidentally, the whole idea of colonization is ass backwards because (1) the US is going to be happy to leave the place as soon as possible, and (2) if the US wanted to steal all of Iraq's oil, it has lots of cheaper ways to do it). And defying the Kyoto protocol, or the UN, or whatever international treaty Bush wants to tear up this week isn't evil, just a political difference, and at most misguided. It's not like the US has ramped up greenhouse gas emissions 10 fold in a conspiracy to turn Brazil into a wasteland. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not very fond of Bush, and think his whole approach of stick-over-carrot and general impatience is downright counter-productive, not to mention his slavish devotion to corporate interests, but he's not
evil).
However, whether or not you agree with recent history, the United States has been doing "bad things" throughout the 20th century (I was thinking of saying 20th and 21st century, but I think it's too soon to pass judgement on the last 3 years). Ever since about 1892 or so, the United States has been invading countries on a regular basis, propping up dictators, and committing atrocities in the name of fighting communism or whatever the cause celebre is at the moment. Personally, I think invading Afghanistan and chucking Saddam Hussein has more to do with the US finally cleaning up its own messes; heck, you could almost describe it as responsible.
Despite all the screwups, the US remains the de facto world leader. Like it or not, agree or disagree, there's no denying that the US does pretty much whatever it wants, and there's nobody in the world who is going to stand up to that in any effective way. Furthermore, although more debatably in light of recent events, the US continues to have a lot of influence in the world. By that measure, the past "bad actions" of the United States have ended up rewarding it with first place among nations. If it were up to some omnipotent independent arbiter, it'd probably have gone to Canada or some inoffensive country like that. I once heard this described as the US system of government (with a strong presidency) getting a C- in democracy (compared to parliamentary systems), but an A+ in world domination.
As for your other point, I think it's a little Pollyanna-ish to judge in advance what a democracy can and can not be allowed to hide. The United Kingdom is generally acknowledged to have a much more democratic system of government than the United States, yet the United Kingdom allowed the city of Coventry to basically be bombed to the ground during WW2 in order to hide the secret that the Enigma cipher had been broken. We're not talking about a decision like keeping the T-bomb secret, which didn't have any consequences for Confederation citizens; we're talking about keeping a secret that involves a real cost, a decision which weighed the value of human beings against each other. In the end, true democracy is about the tyranny of the majority, right or wrong; a rather dangerous system, if you ask me.
Edfilho said:
GeeBot said:
In the long run, yes... but like most human beings, politicians prefer to delay any unpleasant action to the last possible moment. Note the reluctance of US presidents to resume the draft since Vietnam, and the current reluctance of the US administration to admit any mistakes are ever made in any area, period.
Well, agreed. But that explains but does not justify.
Which is exactly what I was trying to do: explain
why a democracy might take an action, not justify it.
I was trying to point out that just because Confed is supposedly democratic (thought it's hinted that it's become a bit more authoritarian over the course of the war) doesn't mean that it's always going to do the right thing. It's the old saw about dictatorship being one idiot at the top running everything by decree, while democracy is a hundred idiots running everything by committee.