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Leland
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However, this SE choice is not available in the very beginning, and even afterwards it requires a popular vote which will not be won as long as Godless precepts of men rule Chiron. It seems to boil down to whether the other factions are willing to give up their disdain of God's Perfect Word and cooperate towards common goals, or if they will persecute us to the last man as it is Prophesied.
(Off-character: uh, we all do see the difference between roleplaying and strategy here, yes?)
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Voltaire
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Calgary, Alberta
Aug 2001
time: 22:21
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Okay Voltair lets take your example and run with it. We begin a society with no moral rudder, anything goes. Murder and theft will run rampid quickly. Do we ban them? What about a persons rights to freedom? Espionage and sabotage run rampid, again they are expressing dissatifaction with the current goverment, exercising thier right to freedom. |
First of all, all societies have set moral standards, ethics are morals seem to be the human herd instinct. But even if we do assume no morality, we do have laws to ensure things such as this do not occur. You should do well to remember that all religions and philosophies of Earth share the basic moral principles in common (i.e. do not kill, do no steal, etc.). And also we aren’t starting out from nothing, we have the entire history of Earth behind us to work with, and the colonists already do have morals of their own.
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Society every day places a moral standard out there for it's people. The problem is most societies only go half way and as such end up with matters almost as bad as not having a standard at all. |
Again, laws exist to protest people and to ensure their freedom, not morals.
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A classic example of Christian morality helpign society. In the ages following Christ when people became ill they where locked in their home or sent to a colony of the sick. No one wanted to tend them. Ever docotrs of that time, mostly greek, would not see a patient face to face for fear of spreading the desiese. However many Christians could not leave people to die alone from their illness. Using philosphies passed down from Jesus they opened their homes to the sick. In many cases the Christians died trying to save those lives. But over time people knew if they got sick they could come to these homes and be welcomed and cared for. As time passed and more doctors became Christians they began to work in these homes directly with the patiences. |
It should also be noted that numerous atrocities have been committed in the name of Christ: the Inquisition, the Crusades, Witch Hunts, and the list goes on and on. I am reminded of a quote from Stephen Weinberg: "Without religion, it will always be possible for good men to do good, and for evil men to do evil; but for good men to do evil - that takes religion." So even though religion does provide some sets of moral standards that are helpful, it also creates problems. And why cannot these moral standards exist in a secular system?
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This effort was the direct ancestory of the concept for the modern hospital, all from the Christian morality point that we should care for our neighbors. |
So no other religions have the moral point of view of helping others? So those who do not believe are not capable of compassion for their neighbors?
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Without the moral rudder the early Christians provided to this movement, the modern hospital could well be centuries behind it's current level of developement. |
Without the interference of Christianity and the Church we would be centuries ahead technologically.
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A goverment is in the end responsable for itself to it's people. If we begin our goverment with a strong moral rudder to guide our people by then we are ensuring they will have happy and prosperous lives. By providing no rudder we risk sending our colony into choas from the start. |
A government’s role is to provide an environment for its people to function is productively. It is not meant as a means of protecting people from themselves, or at least shouldn’t be.
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Voltaire
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Calgary, Alberta
Aug 2001
time: 22:21
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Of course it should be, imagine old Earth, WW2 era. The US has a nuclear weapon. No other country has it. Without some kind of moral guideline the US would have become the Nazi and conquered the world. But the leadership of the US was guideed by a sense of Christian morality. |
The US is a constitutional republic, its laws make it harder for their leadership to take any actions which the public doesn’t want. But also the US at the time wasn’t interested in war, it only joined the war after Pearl Harbor, Christianity wasn’t exactly the only factor which prevented them form taking over the world, in fact it was a small factor if a factor at all. But yes, I understand what you’re trying to get at, but also consider that European nations used Christianity as a rationalization for the conquest of other lands and the slaughter of those who wouldn’t conform with their views. So it’s a two-edged sword. Religion can be used for both good and evil.
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We could be farher in science without the ethics brought out by the Christian faith. However those same ethics might have saved us. Just becasue we can do a thing does not mean we should do that thing. It is easy to make discoveries, it is hard to use them in a way that hurts no one. Think of all the discoveries today that could have hurt mankind without a moral rudder. |
"People certainly blame science for nuclear weapons and similar horrors. It's been said before but needs to be said again: if you want to do evil, science provides the most powerful weapons to do evil; but equally, if you want to do good, science puts into your hands the most powerful tools to do so. The trick is to want the right things, then science will provide you with the most effective methods of achieving them." -- Richard Dawkins
Science is neutral, people use science to create weapons. And it isn’t only Christian morals that prevent these things from being made in fact science will be used for all purposes. Technologies will be used to both create and to destroy, why then deny the use of technologies such as genetic engineering simply because it could be used to do great hard, equally it can do great good.
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Lets use cloning as an example. Say human cloning had not been held back and was widely supported. Today cloning would be a simple matter. The question before us would be are clones human? The debate would rage while some would use clones for body parts and others would fight for their freedom. A civil war the covered the planet would not be far behind. |
First of all, cloning has become a reality only recently, it was never held back. And furthermore it again depends on how cloning is used, if it were to be used to create tissue for patients (not by growing a full clone, but by simply cloning an organ) then there can be no moral outcry against the use of it as such. As for cloning a human being, I personally do not see the point, what use would it be off? Granted governments could use it to create armies of the perfect soldiers, but nonetheless, it cannot be used by the general public for any logical purpose. And besides, there of course would be laws prohibiting cloning for any reason one wishes. If you on the other hand ban it altogether it will submerge to the black market and people who wish to have some procedure done will do it anyway, and under unmonitored conditions. And to answer your question, if a human were to be cloned they would be human, no different form an identical twin of someone (except years younger), what difference would it make how they were created? And your prediction of a world war based on the issue of cloning is farfetched, you really haven’t presented evidence of this. And besides the most probable outcome would be, like with all new technologies, it will be met with opposition and then slowly integrated into society.
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Society must always protect people from themselves. A quote from a fiction movie is quite true. |
I agree, perhaps I should rephrase my earlier statement, the government is not meant to protect individuals from themselves.
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Humans are smart intelligent beings that can work there way through anything, people are a mindless crude animal that will destory before it will create. |
People, and in groups of people, I quite agree that people who classify themselves as part of a particular group will follow the basic animal instincts of defending their group. War really when you get to the basics of it is nothing more than human animal groups divided by ideology/religion/philosophy fighting for resources for their own group. Fundamentalism encourages this group mentality, which I believe is dangerous, that is why individualism should be encouraged by society as much as possible. We should equip people with the proper knowledge to make informed decisions for themselves, to come up with their own personal philosophy, this increases individuality as well as diversity of thought.
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Darkness' Edge
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I agree. That way, we could stand up to the others, and in a coalition form, and still accomodate our differences. I would support the inclusion of the Centauri Democrats in such a coalition.
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Voltaire
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Calgary, Alberta
Aug 2001
time: 22:21
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Originally posted by Voltaire
Fellow citizens, science is the key to development and to self-improvement, it is because of this belief which I have that I desire to serve you all as Director of Science and Technology. I do not believe that partisan politics should play a part in candidacy for this post since all candidates do share the same central beliefs about the role of knowledge in society, but rather than spout rhetoric I will outline my direct policy which I hope to implement in the Director of Science and Technology, as well as my policy in relation to other departments. My hope is that I will get elected to the post based not on party lines, but rather on policy.
I intend to be in touch with the public on all issues, and therefore will run polls to determine the public’s stance on what knowledge and technologies we should pursue. It is my hope to serve all the people and not just the majority, thus I will make it a policy to ask all citizens when voting to state their reasons behind their opinion in order to provide me with as much information as possible in order to be able to serve your needs better.
Likewise, just as I intend to take into account the opinions on the public, circumstances should also play a role in determining what technologies we require. It will be a policy of my administration to keep a close eye on all matters in order to have the necessary information to make the proper decisions. Though I’m certain those dedicated to research such as myself would like nothing more than for us to pursue pure knowledge at all times, but this simply isn’t feasible, we must take into account matters such as if we are involved in a conflict, population growth rate, the needs of the citizens, and so forth.
And finally before I outline my initial policy on the course of research which we should follow in the coming years on Planet, I wish to make the stance of my administration clear on our dealings with other departments. I will personally push for other departments to keep in mind the vital role of science; and as such it will be the policy of this administration to seek the contraction of labs and various institutions which benefit research, not only for the sake of research itself, but also to improve the lives of our citizens as well. We will also keep a close eye on the Directory of Social Engineering to make certain that our department receives proper allocations in order to be able to meet the needs and desires of the people. Our relationship with the Directory of Foreign Affairs will be a close on, and we shall take an active role when it comes to exchange of knowledge with other factions, for trade not only benefit our relations with other factions but it also frees up our own resources and enables this department to speed up our research. As for the matter of giving technologies away to other factions, we believe it best to seek compensation in the form of energy credits if new technologies cannot be obtained, but our stance on selling technology to other factions is more strict, we should not be making our rivals stronger, nevertheless I realize that Foreign Affairs is a delicate matter and so such decisions should be left in the hands of the Directory of Foreign Affairs.
And now let us move on to the specifics…
In the coming years, as I mentioned, it is vital for us to develop our infrastructure. Therefore my plans include concentrating our research efforts on the sphere of Biogenetics; we in turn from this receive an invaluable facility of Recycling Tanks (proving for an increase in nutrients, minerals, and energy at a based) as well as the Human Genome Project. Though my reasons for choosing this path are not only due to the facilities provided for, but also Biogenetics opens the doors to the Secrets of the Human Brain which will only further hasten our scientific development. Centauri Ecology would be most appropriate to research afterwards seeing as it provides us with Formers and thus the possibility to being the terraforming of Planet. After which I believe that research into Social Psych would prove invaluable for it provides us with Recreations Commons for all citizens thus improving their lives, but more importantly it will enables us to complete research into Secrets of the Human Brain leading to other scientific breakthroughs. Social Psych also opens the doors to Ethical Calculus, allowing us to choose Democracy under Social Engineering. But I’m getting ahead of myself; this proposal is just a draft which will be revised pending input from citizens.
It is my hope that I have given you a clear understanding on what I stand for, and my vision for Planet.
Thank you for your time.
Academician Voltaire;
Election Speech |
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07-08-2002 06:17
, Voltaire.
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