Playing Against the Trend: Non-Villainous Anti-PSR, Reactionary etc. Characters

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by ClayDowling

I like the notion of Quebec adopting a more European attitude on social issues, presumably as separate from the rest of Canada. Some day I will get to actually visit Montreal. Sadly, this year is not the year.

I didn't mean to give the impression that if it wasn't outlawed it was common. I was rebelling instead against the notion of a fifth wave monoculture, where everybody would consider eating dead animals barbaric. Within a region, especially an urban area, I can certainly see that as being the case. But for people living out in the little burbclaves, where per the text hobbyist farming is practiced, I would be shocked if people considered eating animals barbaric, just as people living outside of cities today tend to be fine with hunting and fishing for dinner. I would also imagine that just as today people consider hunting and fishing, and the consumption of wild game, to be luxury activities, eating dead animals would be considered a special occasion rather than a common activity for most people.

I am likewise opposed to the idea of monocultures in roleplaying settings. But I think THS is actually less monocultural than the modern world. Even cultures that are covered by the same Cultural Familiarity have extremely diverging opinions regarding such fundamental question as what is a legal person, at what point a person should be legally dead, what is human, and what rights (if any) non-human persons should have.

Oh, and realflesh is definitely played up as a luxury.

[Flyndaran]

Anti-PSR probably depends on the "us vs. them" mentality inherent in living organisms. You and I consider us to include all sapient entities, but he may only consider humans so. That's not necessarily wrong in any concrete way really.
"Protect your own kind" sounds horrible to us now only because it's used only by racists. If it meant protect humans over flatworms, or even gerbils, few would disagree.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I am likewise opposed to the idea of monocultures in roleplaying settings. But I think THS is actually less monocultural than the modern world. Even cultures that are covered by the same Cultural Familiarity have extremely diverging opinions regarding such fundamental question as what is a legal person, at what point a person should be legally dead, what is human, and what rights (if any) non-human persons should have.

Oh, and realflesh is definitely played up as a luxury.

Food in the U.S definitely shows that we care far more about price than taste, health, politics, or source... unless it involves cute animals, insects, or fad hysteria. Then we go bonkers.


Also social media and instant computer aided labeling would allow everyone to instantly know what everyone's beliefs are. Now you can talk socially with someone for months or even years before finding out that they have some wacky idea. My lifemate's half brother is an animal abusing scumball, but it doesn't show until I'm blindsided by some comment.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

You guys, stop that. Liberal is not a curse word meaning everything you hate about western society.

Freedoms don't exist without governmental protection, and that requires governmental control of some things.

As to hunting/fishing/etc., freedom may mean protection for the hunted/fished/etc. too. Humans aren't the only thing that exists now, let alone in THS.

Let's not argue politics, let alone the ethics of carnivory. Whether you believe that the increase in government regulation of individual choices is a good thing or, as I think, largely unnecessary and harmful, the fact remains that "liberal" now means someone who advocates a substantial measure of such regulation, whereas a hundred fifty years ago (and still, to some degree, on the continent), it meant someone who favored minimal regulation. That's a real change in meaning that can be documented by reading political literature of the respective eras.

Bill Stoddard

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Let's not argue politics, let alone the ethics of carnivory. Whether you believe that the increase in government regulation of individual choices is a good thing or, as I think, largely unnecessary and harmful, the fact remains that "liberal" now means someone who advocates a substantial measure of such regulation, whereas a hundred fifty years ago (and still, to some degree, on the continent), it meant someone who favored minimal regulation. That's a real change in meaning that can be documented by reading political literature of the respective eras.

Bill Stoddard

Yeah, but I hate how such words are defined one way by those advocating them and by completely different ways by those opposed.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Sorry. I just felt the need to present a slight counter view. It's just that in the U.S. I see a lot more anti-vegetarian animosity than anti-meat.

To the degree that that's true, it makes widespread avoidance of realflesh in THS all the more suitable as a trope—because it characterizes the future as one whose values have changed in such a way that they recoil with horror from things that we regard as commonplace. This has been a trope of science fiction since Kipling at least.

Bill Stoddard

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Oh, and realflesh is definitely played up as a luxury.

It's definitely possible for a cultural transition to occur from something being a luxury, to something being a scandal. Consider how much less acceptable wearing real animal fur, or owning objects carved from ivory, is now in the United States.

Bill Stoddard

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Anti-PSR probably depends on the "us vs. them" mentality inherent in living organisms. You and I consider us to include all sapient entities, but he may only consider humans so. That's not necessarily wrong in any concrete way really.
"Protect your own kind" sounds horrible to us now only because it's used only by racists. If it meant protect humans over flatworms, or even gerbils, few would disagree.

This is certainly a thought along the line of thinking that I'm interested in. However, I'm not sure it is a universal fact. You are right that for you and me the idea is that all sapient entities* are 'us'.

But that's not necessarily the only way to draw lines.

EU opinion seems close to ours, but with drastic exceptions: bioshell-users being treated as monsters, not people, under rather peculiar circumstances, and the fact that bioroids are not allowed to procreate.

USA opinion is even more unusual. I found it particularly curious that while China prohibits use of bioroids for sex, USA doesn't, but in turn prohibits high-IQ and high-human-DNA bioroids. Or the legal trick of EU AIs when travelling to USA involving founding a corporation, and legally becoming the single asset of said corporation when travelling to USA, in order to be able to enter legal contracts.

Finally, the line-drawing that I came up with for my upcoming character, has nothing to do with 'us vs. them'. He considers it acceptable to own sapients if this occurs either by making them deliberately for a purpose (e.g. making of an AI or an organic robot), or entering such a state through a contract (entered into with no fraud or coercion involved). But he also strictly opposes wanton cruelty towards any sentient entities. So he's okay with eating real or faux flesh, but not with eating live oysters or the like. He's also okay with bedroom employment of Incubus- or Eros- series bioroids, but gets steaming and raging at the mere mention of the ones with LPT from Deep Beyond. For entities who become property through creation and not through contract, he considers most (perhaps all) sorts of work as appropriate, but sees education or construction that makes work enjoyable to be almost mandatory (thus, he's in favour of of hotshotting/brainwashing creations into Sense of Duty/Workaholic, and considered himself somewhat imperfectly made back in pre-freedom days).

* == I tend to draw the line at maybe dolphins, but I'm not sure on which side of the line they are.

[Flyndaran]

So bigot in a sense but not cruel or sadistic?
Personally, I have a sliding scale of "us" rather than fixed categories.

[DocRailgun]

Politics aside, I think an esier way to think of this idea of not eating the flesh of what was once an animal walking around rather than something grown in a vat (and thus didn't have to suffer) is the general attitude of American towards eating dogs or horses (or dolphins/whales). We know intellectually that dogs and horses and even whales must be tasty - there's a whole fleet of taxpayer-funded whaling 'research' ships that catch whales for their meat in Japan, a good deal of horseflesh is imported for the Japanese market, and dog is a delicacy in Asia as well. Yet, if you put a bowl of
bosintang in front of the average American and told them it was 'dog soup', they would probably be rather upset. The same would probably be true if the dish was a horse steak or some nice right whale. I feel pretty safe in thinking that if most people in my office (which is in hunting-friendly MN) knew that Joe Sixpack was raising dogs or horses in their backyard to slaughter and eat he'd be thought of as quite odd if not disturbed by most of the other people in said office. The attitude would be 'you just don't eat that. There are lots of other perfectly good things to eat. No need to kill Seabiscuit'.

I think the average THS'ers preference for 'fauxflesh' is probably the same. "There's perfectly good stuff to eat. Why do you want to eat something that had had fur and parasites and germs all over it while it stomped through its own filth in the mud for years? You're strange." That the future of THS (and even today) makes it possible for people to make their personal opinions into law is just a coincidence.

Originally Posted by ClayDowling

But for people living out in the little burbclaves, where per the text hobbyist farming is practiced, I would be shocked if people considered eating animals barbaric, just as people living outside of cities today tend to be fine with hunting and fishing for dinner. I would also imagine that just as today people consider hunting and fishing, and the consumption of wild game, to be luxury activities, eating dead animals would be considered a special occasion rather than a common activity for most people.