Techno/Emo Discuss

Who won?

  • Techno won.
  • Emo won.
  • Neither won.
  • I just tuned in for the pictures.
  • I couldn’t keep my eyes focused.
0 voters

Oops! I’m a moron. Forgot the all-important debate discussion thread.

I thought it wasn’t supposed to be open until the debate is closed.

Either way, I’m done, but I’m making no more input until Joker finalizes. It was fun!

EDIT- In light of Faust’s post below this one, I completely consent a deletion back to Faust’s first post.

We don’t want debate participants posting here until the debate is over.

So others can comment before the judging?

Yeah - I meant to put this up from the start. It was my mistake that it took so long. Since anyone could start a thread in Mundane, for instance, there is no reason not to have the discussion here. It’s more convenient here. We don’t want participants posting here, in case anything they may post here might skirt the rules they agreed to, such as exceeding a word count or something. I dunno - seems they have their chanxce on the debate thread itself. After the debate closes, and a winner is proclaimed, it doesn’t matter, of course.

Checks watch lol. Is it that bad?

Did this debate get judged?

Not yet. We should have a verdict soon. The judges have been agonising over this one. First-borns have been traded, teeth have been gnashed, and at least two religious conversions have taken place, so far. Please bear with us.

By all means, continue the tooth gnashing.

Is Gib the only Judge?

We’re waiting for Wonderer.

Gaia. I though your argument was a really interesting tack. I expected an argument about the benefits vs. the ills of technology, but I was pleasantly surprised when you threw that out strait away and argued that technology is a form of life, and we have a duty to promote life. Fascinating position, assuming I got that right.
But Gib had a point, you did throw a lot at us. It came across more as a dissertation that a debate. Brevity is the soul of wit, and though you brought up a lot of interesting points, I don’t know how well you related them back to your basic point.

Joker, I personally had trouble following your argument. You use a lot of big words and long sentences, and it makes it hard to keep up. I guess I’m calling the kettle black a little, but I think adding some punctuation and breaking up some sentences will get your points across better. For instance:

One sentence, no punctuation. Good ideas, but they are hard to follow as presented.
Also, I don’t like the quote-respond format. I think there is a loss of clarity in both postitions when they’re addressed in pieces. Few arguments are made in a single sentence, so addressing the sentences misses the larger argument.
But you did make a good counter to Gaia’s hope for life, similar to what Wonderer expressed in his decision statement. Who cares about furthering life in the cosmos, when my life sucks? That needed addressing, and you were right to bring it up.

i r done i r done.

I went with the old “if i can’t eat it then screw it” argument.

It’s not emo though. I don’t think that the title is altogether fair.

Gaia’s main conjecture was that life after humans is natural, or in some way valueable.

I thought Joker had his work cut out for him in the sense that i am disposed to disagree with the importance of life continuing in the form of technology in the first place.

It came down to morals. Eternal success is a completely subjective value, but so is the unimortance of success.

Having no gain or loss of ground down that avenue, i think Joker did well to voice this indifference about the persuance of technology.

In the end i feel the persuance of technology was not justified, but it wasn’t unjustified either. leaving joker to win by default.

Good work from both sides tho.

P.S Joker there is something to be said about the quality of your presentation making it difficult to follow. Having read alot of your stuff i didn’t find it too hard to grasp, though there was some work involved :slight_smile: . great ideas, but as i have the same problem, effort is needed to cultivate even the best idea.

Much respect to Gaia. At first i thought that the new life argument would be very hard to refute, but it came to light that it was as equally difficult to justify.

If Joker had been trying to argue against technology instead of you arguing for it, you would have won. Better luck next time :wink: :laughing:

also sorry for taking so long. I had alot on my mind (still do) but i came through in the end to defy all authority. good stuff.

I think Gia monster won. And here’s why my vote is important. I agree with Jokers ideas to the full extent, passion and all. However in this debate, Gia monster was what one judge called “more eloquent” This was a big factor for me, and maybe not for the right reasons. Regardless, he won in my eyes. Even though i didn’t agree with his ideas in full, he was able to persuade me better

However this goes to Jokers point in other threads about appearance vs reality. I am a sucker for words and persuasion. And this, joker, is why we entertain ourselves. We want to be duped and deceived, since we are all actors ourselves. We can identify with thinking one thing, acting another way. Does this make it right, I dont think so. I know i want to be distanced from entertainment, in that distracting, escapism way. However, it does not detract from our nature, whether shoving popcorn down our mouth in sticky movie seats or looking over cave men walls amid the torch bearers and their light.

Joker, read my Pm. Respond in kind or tell me to fuck off.

Where’s the poll?

Or isn’t there supposed to be one this time?

I noticed I’m allowed to vote for myself in the poll. :smiley:

I’m very pleased with the response. I agree with all the critique toward me so far. Although I made partial summaries of my claim in several different places, I wasn’t so forthright to position: “This is the grand tamale folks! This is what I’m saying right here.” After thinking over more, I decided my summary would probably go . . . “Quality of life depends partially on its potential for life propagation.”

I remember years back, feeling disappointed when I’d read what a difficult time space agencies were having with the prospect of sending humans out there, when machines are so much easier. I thought, as Wonderer did (and apparently NASA considers this too): “Well, you could create a machine that’ll produce human beings on a new planet” and then " . . . of course, you need machinery or other biological organisms to make up for human incapacity and dependancies . . . " Then it hit me . . . why? Suppose I adopted a child instead of pregnancy with a biological one? Does this mean that I never get a chance to impart some physical portion of my soul onto another living thing? How the hell do I justify that? Is this my reason for adding to overpopulation? If not my child, specifically, that has to exist . . . then why a Human at all? Is that genetic sequence a divine sequence?

And then I began learning about quantum computers and felt . . . “wow. I always knew humans were stupid compared to the potential for life out there, but could we soon get proof?” In terms of Star Trek, I felt as Joker does, that the whole warp drive and Humans having this incredible delegate role in the galaxy is delusional and a testament to our perpetual arrogance.

But this was all before my recent conviction toward alien government conspiracy . . . I guess I’m a quack now. Go figure.

Now that the debate is over, I’ll mention what I think I would have argued against.

If you dig into my sources, you can very well characterize their speaker to elloquently bash them. The quantum computer guy at the end of his presentation practically tells you also that drinking Ayahuasca gives you psychic powers. The source of that “protein qubit” picture is from a website entitled “Cosmic Concsiousness” (wow, that sounds scientiffic). Finally, when Joker was bringing up the end of the universe (as I suspected he would), I think he could have milked it a little more by describing how it all seems futile (to which I now have better competing theories that don’t sound so glum after all).

Joker could have attacked my attempt to dodge the debate regarding the “hells and heavens” of technology, and say “but I have a reason to explain why it’s more of a hell than a heaven” which he did in a sense. But once you refute morality (as I knew he would), then you can’t really argue an immoral threat either.

Also, Joker hadn’t mentioned this (which is only a twist to make things weirder) but . . . perhaps human technology is not just a threat to humans. What if we are successful in expanding it out to other places. What if it became an alien invader? Should we be so proud then?

I somewhat agree with Faust’s objection to using pictures- a way of coercing the reader with glamour rather than reason. Both me and Joker tried to attract you with prose and colour. But let’s face it. Glamour is always part of the selling point.