14-09-2002 02:50									#1
	Is Alpha Centauri Intellectually Discriminating? Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

What do you think?

Just look at the blattant elitist divide between the Drones (the Low/Working Class) and the Talents (the High Class). The way the game introduces methods of supressing the Drones (whose name would be offencive if you were called one) eg. Nerve Stapling, Punishment Spheres.

And in the SMAC manual, while the Talents are described as "the cream that rises to the top of your society, your pool of highly skilled intellectuals", the Drones are "the unskilled, unsuitable and disgruntled among your people. They're lazy troublemakers, and they all carry weapons."

Does this congure an image of the feudal pyramidical society? Is this New World Order in action?

	14-09-2002 03:08									#2
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wow. we thought you were gone. there was even a thread about it entitled "whatever happened to cybergod????"

discriminative? i don't think so, but really, i just don't pay that much attention to these things.

	14-09-2002 03:55									#3
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Ha! I answered before I read your post so I misinterpreted the poll. I answered yes because I think that SMAC is complicated to the point where stupid people can't play it well and/or don't like the game (and thus buy CIV 3 ). Was that elitist enough for everyone, lol.

	14-09-2002 06:54									#4
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I suppose you could look at it like that. I prefer to think of it as being honest about human nature.

	14-09-2002 10:03									#5
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I think its an extremeley INNACURATE description of human nature, but thats the point: thats how the governments of the world see us all- morons with no capability for democracy or self-management. perhaps the people who wrote it were trying to make a point. If youre a dictator, or even a indirect democracy representative, the thought of the people you control being just as intelligent as you are is terryfing. Its always been true and its still true today, masters are always secretly scared of their slaves

	14-09-2002 11:54									#6
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The general idea behind Drones and Talents is accurate, in that some people have more talent than others.

	14-09-2002 14:04									#7
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quote: Originally posted by Xian I think its an extremeley INNACURATE description of human nature, but thats the point: thats how the governments of the world see us all- morons with no capability for democracy or self-management. perhaps the people who wrote it were trying to make a point. If youre a dictator, or even a indirect democracy representative, the thought of the people you control being just as intelligent as you are is terryfing. Its always been true and its still true today, masters are always secretly scared of their slaves

I agree. Maybe true happiness in a society is found without leaders or masters. But we are far from that, still got a lot to learn as a species.

quote: wow. we thought you were gone. there was even a thread about it entitled "whatever happened to cybergod????"

There was? I'm touched! I'll run the search button right no-.. soon.

	14-09-2002 16:37									#8
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I say it is, but in some ways it's not as bad as it could be - Drones have ample potential to become Citizens, who have ample potential to become Talents. So it's not all that bad - at least the structure isn't rigid and self-perpetuating.

	14-09-2002 20:16									#9
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I don't think the very distinction Talents/Workers/Drones is indiscrimating, but rather the ways of turning "unsuitable" Drones into "useful" Workers - police, stapling, spheres, etc.

And another question is what actually do Empaths in order to make Drones fit in the society - isn't it the Thought Police?

	14-09-2002 21:36									#10
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Of course, SMAC/X is intellectually discriminating. Or better: Intelligence is discriminating, because it serves as means to distinguish (discriminare) smart from stupid people. And even worse, it discriminates intelligent from untintelligent players. But i think this is gooood!

Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.

	15-09-2002 00:08									#11
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quote: Originally posted by Kirov And another question is what actually do Empaths in order to make Drones fit in the society - isn't it the Thought Police?

The way I always saw the Telepathic Matrix video, it's not so much thought control as emotional influence - the Empathi project 'good vibes', dissuading people from committing violent acts and so on. So not actually tweaking their thoughts, but making them feel nicer.

	15-09-2002 00:26									#12
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quote: Originally posted by Clear Skies The way I always saw the Telepathic Matrix video, it's not so much thought control as emotional influence - the Empathi project 'good vibes', dissuading people from committing violent acts and so on. So not actually tweaking their thoughts, but making them feel nicer.

Yea, yea, that's the way THEY want you to see it.

	15-09-2002 00:40									#13
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That way lies paranoia

	15-09-2002 00:52									#14
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Cyber's been reading 1984, he's bound to be a bit paranoid.

	15-09-2002 02:23									#15
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quote: I think its an extremeley INNACURATE description of human nature, but thats the point: thats how the governments of the world see us all- morons with no capability for democracy or self-management. perhaps the people who wrote it were trying to make a point. If youre a dictator, or even a indirect democracy representative, the thought of the people you control being just as intelligent as you are is terryfing. Its always been true and its still true today, masters are always secretly scared of their slaves

Honestly, I doubt most representatives of an indirect democracy even would notice that there are more intelligent than they are
But in fact, where this problem arises, are teachers. Most teachers are jealous when they have pupils who are more intelligent than they are themselves, and exploit the advantage in terms of knowledge to suppress them. Good teachers are proud of them. Especially with younger children, younger than ~10 years, I find it hilarious when an adult person (happens very often during a mass which is designed for kids) asks something where the answer they want to have is very obvious (of course, I was a kid as well) and one of the young people gives a completely unexpected, and much better, answer. The other adults in the church usually laugh. I fear the child doesn't realize that the answer was child-like and the laughter is about an adult being childish ...

	15-09-2002 02:31									#16
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I agree. Although I've been very lucky - I have fantastic teachers this year. Especially for Politics - I can discuss things like the lack of Socialism in America due to the absence of a feudal system, and actually get an intelligent debate rather than just a weird look.

	15-09-2002 03:04									#17
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I think Alpha Centauri is very discriminating, but that has never bothered me. I always thought of it as something akin to Orwell's 1984, or Huxley's Brave New World, or any other SF work that viewed humans as basically bastards. It's not that we can't be any better, it's just that we won't. In many ways AC (pretentious mode activated) makes the opinion that no matter how much we learn about ourselves, this knowledge will always be used by some to exert undue control. Even the Trancendence Victory is really a grab for ultimate power. Just remember that AC is not a generic SF game, it has a strong story and background and (good) stories written by people always have a point to make about people.

	15-09-2002 03:34									#18
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quote: Originally posted by Kassiopeia Cyber's been reading 1984, he's bound to be a bit paranoid.

That's it! Go to Room 101 now!



And if you read "Brave New World" and saw the distinctions between the "Alpha Pluses" and "Epsilon Semi-Morons" and then look at the "Drones" and "Talents"...

And there's a fact that the dystopian realities of the two novels ("1984" and "B.N.W.") are now closer than you think (in terms of technology etc.).

DOUBLETHINK

	15-09-2002 05:13									#19
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quote: Originally posted by Cybergod And if you read "Brave New World" and saw the distinctions between the "Alpha Pluses" and "Epsilon Semi-Morons" and then look at the "Drones" and "Talents"...

And then look at the "Alpha Talents" in the Demo game...

THEY are already among us...

	15-09-2002 12:28									#20
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quote: Originally posted by Cybergod And if you read "Brave New World" and saw the distinctions between the "Alpha Pluses" and "Epsilon Semi-Morons" and then look at the "Drones" and "Talents"...

... I have real problems seeing any similarities between Brave New World's class divide and SMAC's Drones and Talents.

Alpha Pluses and Epsilons would both be normal citizens in SMAC, doing exactly what they were meant to do. Brave New World was a world without Drones or Talents. Since everybody did what they wanted, there was no need for rebellion.

And, as far as I can see, the divide between Drones, Citizens and Talents is only "elitist" if you take the divide to be a litteral divide between real people. "Drones" is just a graphical representation of the percentage of the population that's vocally unhappy with the leadership. Note that this is almost everyone unless you have some way to quell the repellion (with police) or wow the masses with massive infrastructure.

When you use nerve stapling, I figure that the actual people being nerve stapled don't come back, but the ranks are refilled by people disliking this form of punishment.

(I'm a bit tired. I hope this was coherent ... )

	15-09-2002 13:22									#21
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quote: Brave New World was a world without Drones or Talents.

Punishment Sphere or Nerve Stapling? I haven't read the book but if research continued at a good pace, it is nerve stapling. ATROCITY!!!!

	15-09-2002 13:29									#22
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It could be seen as the same as those with higher qualifications vs those that barely finished/dropped out of college.

But I don't think the game is showing this in a bad way. Naturally, those sent to Alpha Centauri would have to be rather proficient in a number of fields - the technological and societal elite, if you like. In a society arising from such a group of people it would naturally be that a technocracy of sorts would arise. After a few generations of harsh colonial life, there would not have been the resources nor time to educate many of the newborns to Talent status - everyone's just trying to stay alive. As infrastructure grows and people adapt, Talents arise.

But none of this in the game need be seen in a bad light. In fact, I like to believe that something that all factions would see is the need to raise all citizens to Talent level - that the urge to improve the lives of their fellows for everyone's good is paramount to concerns of most SE choices. The only differences would be what factions see as a "Talent" - for the University it would be the academics, for the Drones the skilled technicians, for the UN the smoothtalkers

	15-09-2002 13:47									#23
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Don't forget the Punishment Sphere also removes any Talents you might have in the cities with the Spheres, so it's not discriminating.

	16-09-2002 04:18									#24
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Not only did you find a girlfriend, CG, but she has turned you to new concerns, it would seem.

I loved Brave New World and interpreted it similarly to the way Uberslacker did. It seems that SMAC has a similar style to BNW, but it cleverly presents alternative futures to battle against one another.

If you don't want elitism, I would be concerned about the current capitalist world, rather than worrying over what SMAC presents. But then, I'd only get really bothered about it if I gave up on establishing a foothold for myself in the elite classes

	16-09-2002 08:06									#25
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Well, seeing as how I'm always running police state, i'd have to say no. so long as the talents contribute to the welfare of society and the drones keep being productive, my governmental style suits me just fine!

so, no, i don't think that it's intellectually discriminative.

	17-09-2002 00:15									#26
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Still, more than a third of voters are on my side...

But seriously I just wished to discuss about the realpolitik world today and how it is visualised in this computer game, which is meant to represent the "future of mankind". If this is continued in other computer games, this might set a future trend in educating people to be classist and elitist, and see others as just another subject to be exploited.

But as all the factions seem to take a different view on the issue, I guess the game finds a slight balance.

And sorry if I rant too much - Maria says I should be free to discuss any subject I wish...

	17-09-2002 04:37									#27
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Maria's right, of course.

And the game is mostly populated with self-serving bast&rds with pragmatic society models. However there are exceptions (Dierdre, Drones).

In the end, I would be far more concerned about people educated by Carmaggedon, Doom and Mortal Kombat than those spoilt by too much SMAC.

	17-09-2002 04:50									#28
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I agree. Carmageddon teaches us that running over people in cars is funny. Mortal Kombat suggests that it is possible to rip a man's heart out using only one hand. And Doom . . . well, Doom just scares the heck out of me.

	17-09-2002 05:28									#29
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quote: Originally posted by Mr. President I agree. Carmageddon teaches us that running over people in cars is funny.

It isn't? Damn, that's a lesson I learned in "Deathrace 2000", back in the 1970s. I'm not sure if I can supress at least a giggle when I come across a scene of fatal road rage. Are you sure it's not funny?

	17-09-2002 05:45									#30
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Okay, maybe it's a little funny.