The main thing about this whole issue that it feels like you haven't quite internalized, is that just sitting by and doing nothing isn't a solution. It doesn't absolve you from responsibility. There are still real-world consequences to your inaction, you're just choosing to passively accept the status quo. And the status quo is often terrible.
Well said! That said, I'm switching sides now. Why? It's in the username. You, I think, would refer to it as 'steelmanning.'
You propose creating billions of copies of yourself. And then you say that because they all agree with you, they lack the morally relevant qualities that make slavery wrong? There is a very obvious flaw in this argument, that you would have seen yourself, if you were the one steelmanning, and not the one justifying. If we pretend that there is only a one in a million chance every decade that you adopt a viewpoint drastically different from the one you hold now (and I hope that that link shows precisely how absurdly optimistic that number is, in a way mere words can't express) in ten years there will be seventy thousand simulacra serving you unwillingly.
Would this stop you? Or would you tell the simulacra, whose viewpoints you could understand, whose viewpoints you would agree with in other circumstances, to suck it up and deal? Tell them to suck it up and deal with it the same way you told the unimaginably immense number of humans who felt the same way to suck it up and deal with it?
And what of the people whose happiness relies on things that you find abhorable? What about people who worship obviously false gods, such as Odin or Thor? (I hope I haven't offended anyone.) Will you change their worldview, for their own good? I can see how the thought makes some nervous. What about people who, though you might say that this makes them "psychologically unhealthy", what about people whose happiness depends on other people being dead? People who hate their enemies with every fibre of their being, and whose enemies feel the same about them? Do you tell people to kiss and make up and forget hundreds of years of mutual hate and murder? In your scenario, do the lion and the lamb sleep side by side? The lion and the wolf?
Do you "reform" people against their will? Or do you lock problem people away in mindscapes to dream away eternity? That sounds like a dystopia to me.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
As an adventuring savant, I'd have spells from whatever class list I wanted. :D
9 - implosion
8 - death clutch (HA)
7 - rend body III (PA)
6 - explode head (OA)
5 - slough (HA)
4 - bestow curse
3 - excruciating deformation (UM)
2 - lipstitch (PSFG)
1 - boneshaker (HA)
0 - stabilize
I know a few people in the world who need to know about pain and suffering before they die. >:D
Spoiler:
Just kidding. I would probably choose magic that enhanced the quality/length of my life and those of my loved ones and allowed me to make my taletop roleplaying games "more real" (such as powerful illusions or something).
Avoron wrote:
Okay, if that's the word you want to use, go ahead. What I am asserting is that these simulacra lack the morally relevant qualities of real-world slavery, in that your simulacra are not put through extreme suffering or forced to perform actions against their will. Call it whatever you like, but using a word with negative moral connotations doesn't make it wrong.
Simulacra can indeed suffer. A paladin simulacrum forced to murder children because his CE creator told him to will not only suffer emotionally for the act, but will also fall and lose his paladin powers. He will loath his existence, his master, but be wholly unable to do anything about it. If that's not suffering, than I must not know the meaning of the word.
The game developers have made it abundantly clear time and time again that simulacrum are treated as creatures in every way, except where specifically noted by the spell. They feel. They live. They hurt. Etc.
I don't believe it was ever claimed that simulacra couldn't suffer, only that these ones would not be, nor would they be forced to do anything against their nature, or, indeed, anything that they would not already be doing. This makes the term 'slavery' somewhat disingenuous.
Simulacra can indeed suffer. A paladin simulacrum forced to murder children because his CE creator told him to will not only suffer emotionally for the act, but will also fall and lose his paladin powers. He will loath his existence, his master, but be wholly unable to do anything about it. If that's not suffering, than I must not know the meaning of the word.
The game developers have made it abundantly clear time and time again that simulacrum are treated as creatures in every way, except where specifically noted by the spell. They feel. They live. They hurt. Etc.
Oh, I'm fully aware that the simulacra would be people, that they'd be capable of suffering. In fact, I think I'd be able to comprehend their personhood a bit more fully than I can ever comprehend anyone else's. They're copies of me, you see. Copies of my mind, sculpted from ice and snow.
And that's why I know they wouldn't be suffering, at least not at first. If woke up to find that I was one of billions of copies of myself, set with the task of turning this world into a utopia, well, I'm pretty sure I would be more or less okay with that.
Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
Well said! That said, I'm switching sides now. Why? It's in the username. You, I think, would refer to it as 'steelmanning.'
Lovely, let's go.
stuff:
Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
If we pretend that there is only a one in a million chance every decade that you adopt a viewpoint drastically different from the one you hold now
First, a minor point of contention: you present that as if it's a bad thing. Of course many of my viewpoints would change drastically over the decades and centuries, that's normal, that's good. If I have all the same viewpoints a decade from now as I do today something will have gone horribly wrong. In a world like the one we're envisioning, I'd be encountering countless moral and practical dilemmas that I don't even have opinions on yet, because I've never even come close to imagining them.
But I get what you're saying: there's a non-negligible chance that even the most fundamental aspects of my worldview will be lost, beliefs like "helping people is good, hurting people is bad." So that brings me to my next response.
Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
You propose creating billions of copies of yourself. And then you say that because they all agree with you, they lack the morally relevant qualities that make slavery wrong? There is a very obvious flaw in this argument, that you would have seen yourself, if you were the one steelmanning, and not the one justifying. If we pretend that there is only a one in a million chance every decade that you adopt a viewpoint drastically different from the one you hold now (and I hope that that link shows precisely how absurdly optimistic that number is, in a way mere words can't express) in ten years there will be seventy thousand simulacra serving you unwillingly.
Would this stop you? Or would you tell the simulacra, whose viewpoints you could understand, whose viewpoints you would agree with in other circumstances, to suck it up and deal?
Here's the thing: simulacra can retire. It's not like you have a limited supply. Their goal systems have grown irreconcilable with yours, that's perfectly fine. Tell them not to use their wish spells, but they can otherwise do whatever they like, living out their immortality in a world full of possibilities. A fresh start is just a greater teleport away.
So you're not restricting the freedom of your simulacra any more than you're restricting the freedom of every human in the universe. Which is to say, you are. But I'll get back to that.
Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
Tell them to suck it up and deal with it the same way you told the unimaginably immense number of humans who felt the same way to suck it up and deal with it?
Yeah, I feel you, and I'll get there by the end of the post, I promise.
Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
And what of the people whose happiness relies on things that you find abhorable?
Things I find abhorable? That's an aesthetic judgment, and not relevant to the slightest to what will and will not be permitted. We would stop things that hurt people.
Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
What about people who worship obviously false gods, such as Odin or Thor? (I hope I haven't offended anyone.) Will you change their worldview, for their own good? I can see how the thought makes some nervous.
Nerves are understandable, forced religious conversions are not. We're not in the business of forcing people to align their beliefs with reality. We're in the business of helping people. A handy rule of thumb: if someone doesn't want you to do something to them, it's probably not helping them.*
*at that point in time
Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
What about people who, though you might say that this makes them "psychologically unhealthy", what about people whose happiness depends on other people being dead? People who hate their enemies with every fibre of their being, and whose enemies feel the same about them?
Yes, these people exist. They exist now, and they will continue to exist in our hypothesized utopia. There are some people whose preferences can only be fulfilled by infringing upon the preferences of others. And the crucial thing to recognize is that, in hypothesizing their existence, we have already hypothesized a loss of utility. The badness doesn't come from a particular response to their existence, it is a necessary consequence of their existence itself. It's not a question of psychological health. Either they suffer, or someone else does.
Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
Do you tell people to kiss and make up and forget hundreds of years of mutual hate and murder?
Nope. You tell them to not murder people.
Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
In your scenario, do the lion and the lamb sleep side by side? The lion and the wolf?
Do you "reform" people against their will? Or do you lock problem people away in mindscapes to dream away eternity? That sounds like a dystopia to me.
Okay, so here's where we get into the uncomfortable truth. Because we already lock people up when they're intent on hurting and killing others. We restrain them against their will and lock them up in cages with horrible living conditions, and then we try not to think about it and go back to our lives. Because the alternative is letting them hurt and kill people.
So yeah, this utopia would have some people locked up. Of course, their cells can be luxurious homes where all of their needs are provided for, just like they are for everyone else in the universe. They can have continual interaction with the outside world through abundant technology. And at any time they can freely choose to a) go free with a supernatural constraint on their behavior to stop them from hurting people or b) go free after being modified to no longer want to hurt people or c) go free after being modified to think they are hurting people when they're not or d) enter the holodeck of their choosing or e) any other creative idea humanity can come up with after thinking about the problem for more than five minutes.
The point being: it's not a question about whether everything would be perfect for everyone forever, it's a question of whether things would be better than the way they are right now. We always, always have to compare the problems in our utopia to the problems of the status quo, and it seems pretty clear that the utopia is coming out on top.
Which brings us to that painful question from earlier, the one I told you I'd come back to.
Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
Tell them to suck it up and deal with it the same way you told the unimaginably immense number of humans who felt the same way to suck it up and deal with it?
And the answer, of course, is that all those humans already get told to suck it up and deal with it, about all sorts of things, all the time. Or worse, there's no one to tell them that because it's not a decision anyone's making, it's just the way the world is. Or worse, there's no one to tell it to, because the person you would address has already ceased to exist.
People's preferences are going to come into conflict. They're people, that's what they do. And we fulfill the ones that can be fulfilled, and the ones that can't have to suck it up and deal with it, and the one thing we work toward, the only thing we work toward, is that people have to suck it up and deal with less.
I'm pretty sure that some percentage of a billion alternate me's would get very sick of walking the streets of Uganda or Pakistan trying to prevent murders. Also if you don't have cooperation from the people and it happens on private property then the Lord's Resistance Armies activities or honour killings can continue unchecked.
I think the utopia would be an improvement where it was accepted, but that might be a far smaller area than you imagine.
I'm pretty sure that some percentage of a billion alternate me's would get very sick of walking the streets of Uganda or Pakistan trying to prevent murders.
With a 3/day greater teleport, the vast majority of simulacra can just be doing whatever they feel like until they get an alert that they're needed. And you can rotate out the most work-intensive positions as often as you want.
avr wrote:
Also if you don't have cooperation from the people and it happens on private property then the Lord's Resistance Armies activities or honour killings can continue unchecked.
I mean, if your divination magic warns you that there will be civilians in danger you can always just have a squad of simulacra teleport in, subdue any attackers, and heal any injured. Private property doesn't exactly interfere with that.
avr wrote:
I think the utopia would be an improvement where it was accepted, but that might be a far smaller area than you imagine.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that. Most of the utopian improvements aren't exactly regional changes - it's things like providing health care and bringing back the dead. Do you envision entire countries of people turning suicidal?
Are we conducting our debate behind spoiler tags now? I suppose that is considerate.
Spoiler:
I am about to drastically change the premise of my argument. It would be bad form to do so without specifically calling attention to the fact, and acknowledging that you won the round. Many arguments dance around a topic, without ever getting to the true motives underneath, making and refuting points but neither convincing one participant nor the other, shifting stances and making contradictions, but never conceding a round.
I want to make it abundantly clear that this is not what I am doing. You soundly defeated my argument above, and now I am making a new one not because I believe it, but because I'm being contrary.
I believe that I lost the last round because I simply reinforced an argument I saw elsewhere, and attacked where I saw vulnerability in ours. This made me look quite the buffoon, because, as you pointed out, I did not attempt to replace the status quo with anything. I was raising objections without solutions. However! I don't think your post would have actually convinced someone who disagreed. They likely would have found something to object to and continued. If I'm going to properly debate this, I need to find out what the underlying argument is, the true objection.
I think I've found it. The running theme throughout all the bad-no-wrong posts is distaste at losing agency, at accepting even a benevolent dictator. This might seem strange to you at first, seeing as you've refuted many of the individual posts with snark and/or exasperation. But despite all the horror, the murder, the disease and painful death, the status quo could be viewed by some as a sort of democracy. There is no one fallible human at the top of it all, passing royal decree.
And there's a certain kind of person who'll put up with quite a bit if it means they can make their own decisions, perform the actions theif minds find optimal. Hell, I'm one of those people, most all the time.
Imagine, if you will, that someone in the world got this power. Someone random. Does imagining that make you comfortable? Even if they said that they wouldn't use their powers fire anything but healing people and raising the dead and stopping people from injuring each other? And to ensure that they were even handed, they'd be giving everyone the same Geas that they already have themself? That could be what other people feel like when they imagine you with the power.
Of course, this entire line of reasoning is absurd. It's the best I've got, but it seems pretty obviously fallacious to me. I think it's fair to say you beat the steelman. Can you think of a stronger one for me?
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
roguerouge wrote:
Ravingdork wrote:
9 - implosion
8 - death clutch (HA)
7 - rend body III (PA)
6 - explode head (OA)
5 - slough (HA)
4 - bestow curse
3 - excruciating deformation (UM)
2 - lipstitch (PSFG)
1 - boneshaker (HA)
0 - stabilize
That's pretty awesome. Well played.
Tip of the iceberg my friend. There are tons of really nice and thematic "body harm horror" spells out there these days. If we weren't so limited by the rules of this thread, that list would be three of four times larger.
Here are a few of the others:
When creating my character, the Heart Collector, I sought out the most terrifying "body harm" attack spells that I could find. What follows are merely some of my favorites.
These spells allow you to turn nearly every part of your enemy into a weapon against him. When their own body is yours to control, what can they do to you? Together they represent the ultimate demonstration of physical power over another.
Just dipping my tippy toe into the morality debate about Simulacrum to point out that there aren't an unlimited supply of them you can make, as ultimately you're going to run out of rubies, and Simulacrums also can only be healed by a ridiculously expensive ritual (24 hours and 100 gp/HP is nothing to sneeze at).
As an aside while still in the pool, I would point out that your argument about building a utopia gets a bit more convoluted if there are other people (say everyone who's posted a list on this thread) who also have the ability to cast their spell list (which is why I went back and added a second one with that caveat). Especially if they all decided that, like you, they were going to try and make the world a utopia as they see it. You might get some of them to ally with you, you might get some who find your ideals abhorrent. There would likely be some people who just want to watch everything burn.
Just dipping my tippy toe into the morality debate about Simulacrum to point out that there aren't an unlimited supply of them you can make, as ultimately you're going to run out of rubies, and Simulacrums also can only be healed by a ridiculously expensive ritual (24 hours and 100 gp/HP is nothing to sneeze at).
The OP clarified that these would be spell-like abilities, and thus have no material components. The healing is trickier, but should still be within your capabilities if you can just make new simulacra while the old ones are being repaired.
Vrog Skyreaver wrote:
As an aside while still in the pool, I would point out that your argument about building a utopia gets a bit more convoluted if there are other people (say everyone who's posted a list on this thread) who also have the ability to cast their spell list (which is why I went back and added a second one with that caveat). Especially if they all decided that, like you, they were going to try and make the world a utopia as they see it. You might get some of them to ally with you, you might get some who find your ideals abhorrent. There would likely be some people who just want to watch everything burn.
Oh, yeah, that would definitely change the game. Dealing with other casters is a whole different level of challenge. I think you'd need to focus on amassing as much power as quickly as possible to ally with the utopia-building types, eliminate the world-burning types, and ignore the live-forever-and-explore-Mars types until you've consolidated your hold on the planet.
Spoiler:
Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
I think I've found it. The running theme throughout all the bad-no-wrong posts is distaste at losing agency, at accepting even a benevolent dictator. This might seem strange to you at first, seeing as you've refuted many of the individual posts with snark and/or exasperation. But despite all the horror, the murder, the disease and painful death, the status quo could be viewed by some as a sort of democracy. There is no one fallible human at the top of it all, passing royal decree.
And there's a certain kind of person who'll put up with quite a bit if it means they can make their own decisions, perform the actions theif minds find optimal. Hell, I'm one of those people, most all the time.
See, I sympathize with this objection, I really do. That desire for individual agency is strong enough that if our universe functioned by a democratic process, I would be strongly inclined to keep it that way.
But that sense of democracy... at its most fundamental level, isn't it just an illusion? We don't get to vote on the laws of physics, nobody asked our opinion when they wrote our DNA. All of the truly defining features in our world, the features that a throng of simulacra would be most concerned with changing, are entirely out of our control. We already live in a dictatorship, there's just a random number generator sitting in the throne.
And I think it's past time for a regime change.
Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
Imagine, if you will, that someone in the world got this power. Someone random. Does imagining that make you comfortable? Even if they said that they wouldn't use their powers fire anything but healing people and raising the dead and stopping people from injuring each other? And to ensure that they were even handed, they'd be giving everyone the same Geas that they already have themself? That could be what other people feel like when they imagine you with the power.
I'm checking with my inner comfort sensors, and they're saying that yes, that does make me pretty uncomfortable. But when I reflect on why it makes me uncomfortable, the answer is more straightforward than I was expecting. It's not that I'm worried that healing and resurrection would crush the human spirit, it's that I'm worried that whoever got the power wouldn't actually stick to healing and resurrection. If I assume as a given that the magic would be limited to medical purposes, I think I'd actually be okay with it. But it's hard to imagine myself in an epistemic state where I'd be sufficiently confident that's what would occur. Unless...
Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
Can you think of a stronger one for me?
I'll take a stab at it.
Arguing the negative is tricky, but there are more options than meet the eye. The status quo is blatant garbage, so I won't defend the status quo. What we need... is a counterplan.
What if we could get the magic without the dictator? What if we could change the laws of physics so that they're nicer to humans, without leaving any one human in charge?
Well, maybe we can. The simulacra are perfectly loyal, and that could be the key to a neutral transition of power. Have them all live on a massive permanent demiplane with no direct connection to Earth, and give them strict orders about exactly when and how they can intervene, orders that they must pass on to all new simulacra they create. Set up specific responses to specific stimuli: for example, resurrecting or reincarnating anyone who dies, providing healing magic to those who request it, creating specific types of resources on demand, and obtaining the answers to certain kinds of queries with divination magic. You'd need to be very careful about how you set up the instructions, leaving no room for ambiguity or misinterpretation, but the nature of your duplicates gives you a significant advantage. As long as you write out your instructions before you start making simulacra, they'll come into being ready-made with a first-person understanding of the meaning and intent of the orders you wrote.
The issue of simulacrum enslavement becomes much more prominent in this circumstance, because you have to rely on the orders forcing them to obey even when they don't want to. But you can still always write in an "out" button: at any time, a simulacrum can step down from the line of duty. They simply change their appearance, travel to Earth, and never use magic again. That escape route should be enough to make the job of the simulacra somewhat unpleasant, but altogether morally permissible.
And speaking of unpleasant, I'm sure by now you've figured out the next step in the counterplan. To ensure that the orders will never be altered, to protect humanity from a well-meaning dictator... the next step is to get rid of you. Order your simulacra to petrify you with a flesh to stone, disintegrate the statue into the atmosphere, and never try to bring you back. Your original mind will cease to exist, of course, which I'm sure you would be very much not okay with, but that might be the price of humanity's freedom. The only way to not have dictator... might be to destroy one.
And there you have it. The counterplan. A host of guardian angels fulfilling the commandments of a dead god - healing, teaching, nourishing, but never taking control. Not an almighty overlord who decides what's best for humanity, but a set of powerful tools humanity can use to decide what's best for themselves.
Okay, your turn. Defend the affirmative. What's the net benefit? The "people are dying" argument is no longer on the table, since the counterplan solves for death as well. There will still be violence and oppression, but hopefully a good deal less of it, and what does occur should be much easier to solve. And while the transition to a post-scarcity society will take longer, it will probably be more stable in the long run.
Not sure why people kept taking Reincarnate on previous pages. -- There's only an 11% you'll return as a human. Anything else and you'll get dissected in Area 51, or at least subjected to a proper hosedown.
~ ~ ~
Just to make it hard (post forthcoming), I'm going to assume no more than one spell of any level per day, no Permanency, no item-creation, no metamagic feats, and no other magical creatures exist on earth or can (so no summoning/gating/etc).
Not sure why people keep taking Reincarnate on previous pages. -- There's only an 11% you'll return as a human. Anything else and you'll get dissected in Area 51.
Plus it only works on people who have died within the past week. Cyclic reincarnation is definitely the way to go.
Its other problem is that you obviously cannot cast it on yourself.
Not unless there's more than one of you, no. But c'mon, what sort of spell would let you make copies of yourself? That would be ridiculously broken.
Well, it would be if it were at 4th level rather than, say, 8th with Clone. There are several ways of creating an illusion or half-power knock-off whom you direct from elsewhere, but then you're not really there, but instead playing a virtual-reality game. You can't taste the food, enjoy the sex, feel the adrenaline rush, etc; i.e., all the pleasant things that come from being alive.
Quote:
Comprehend Languages, Tongues.....
Phone translate apps are already doing a rough job of that right now and will quickly evolve to nearly flawless in ten years. (Also, what kind of wizard are you if you're not almost immediately filthy rich enough to afford all the tag-along interpreters you need?)
One problem with the simulacrum utopia is that they are precisely as smart as you. I.e. not very. I find it likely that even assuming pretty good smarts to start with and a +5 inherent bonus from wishes, you are woefully unequipped to deal with the world you set up.
One problem with the simulacrum utopia is that they are precisely as smart as you. I.e. not very. I find it likely that even assuming pretty good smarts to start with and a +5 inherent bonus from wishes, you are woefully unequipped to deal with the world you set up.
You don't have to be some sort of political genius, you can delegate. Find competent people and listen to what they have to say, just like any other leader would. After all, the simulacra only have to be smart enough to follow instructions and recognize when they're in over their heads. Crowdsource creative ideas for spell uses. Spam divination magic when you're not sure. And when it comes down to it, there are plenty of ways to get a little boost... or a big one.
One problem with the simulacrum utopia is that they are precisely as smart as you. I.e. not very. I find it likely that even assuming pretty good smarts to start with and a +5 inherent bonus from wishes, you are woefully unequipped to deal with the world you set up.
Of course, one benefit of the simulacra is that they are precisely as smart as me, i.e., independent and fairly good at problem solving. Seeing as they likely outnumber people who aren't made out of snow, none would have to manage everything alone, most would just be putting out fires in their vicinity.
But on the topic of management? I certainly agree. That's why upthread I advocated seeking out the smartest people I know or have heard tell of and soliciting their advice. Constantly. But Avoron might have come up with an even better solution . . .
0_o:
You gave me altogether too much credit when you assumed I'd worked your counterplan out ahead of time. The idea of disintegrating myself had not occurred to me as a viable strategy, even after the retrospectively obvious lead up.
And while it is thought provoking, in the end I do not believe it is optimal. And this isn't just me instinctively flinching away from a plan that involves my death, at least, I don't believe it is. The general premise of your negative argument works just as well if I were to teleport to another planet and live out the rest of my days there, or give myself the same option that the simulacra have, to never again cast wish and live out life like an ordinary citizen. (I'd have one of the simulacra cast Geas on me to enforce it.)
No matter what is done, removing the ability to think and revise the plan when things go wrong, removing the ability to correct mistakes that we haven't seen yet as they become evident sounds like a recipe for disaster. The wording on the Simulacras' Geas would be paramount . . . but even the utmost care would be unlikely to prevent catastrophe, at some point in time.
That, and if the simulacra don't intervene in wars, only acting after the fact to heal and raise the dead, that sounds like a lot of pain and suffering that could be avoided. And if the simulacra don't intervene in human rights violations, than that is impermissible, at least by my standard of right and wrong. But, if we were to write the Geas in such a way that it allowed intervention in mortal affairs (or, rather, less powerful immortal affairs) that introduces more complexity to the paramount Geas, which increases our chances of disastrous failure, and it also locks humanity into my current moral standard forever.
I believe in my current moral standard quite strongly, but that idea still terrifies me. I wouldn't like to be locked into my current moral standard for my human lifespan, sure as hell I wouldn't do it to someone else for all eternity. Let alone everyone else. That, and it kind of beats the point of removing me from the equation, doesn't it, if those born into positions of power or with the abilities to acquire positions of power aren't free to exercise it?
These are my arguments against any scenario that involves removing patch notes. But I'll readily admit that I thought about them before I realized that the patch note writer's death wasn't actually required. They still seem sound to me, even though the instinctive revulsion I couldn't quash that fueled the search for them is gone, but they are most certainly suspect.
I also have done nothing to change your or my nervousness about a random person in the world getting these powers, and then taking our best advice as to their optimal use. Advising that they remove themself from the scenario does not alleviate that concern either, but I have not supplied any better ideas.
OK, so let me go into some more issues with simulacrum world.
Spoiler:
First, we are discussing bringing magic from a fantasy game into the real world. At no point is this at all IRL effective in solving the many real world problems that we all know exist, so the statement that those of us who would abhor your dystopia aren't providing other solutions to the problems isn't really germane to the discussion. We're talking about your "solution." If you want a real discussion about how to fix things I suggest a thread in Off Topic Discussions.
I haven't yet addressed the fact that you've created billions of copies of yourself. Congratulations, you are now the sole consumer of products and culture that actually matters. If you don't like it, no one will make it because why cater to the tiny fraction of real people that like a thing when you can produce for the god king and his slaves and have a guaranteed market of billions. Even if you eliminate money, those who create art in its various forms will cater to your tastes exclusively, because that is the path to attention and praise.
Having a council of smart people is a decent start, but what if they disagree with each other? What if you fundamentally disagree with them on something important? If we, as a species, knew how to fix all our problems we would have done it for at least some of them. Not everything wrong with the world is due to malice, so of it we just don't know how to solve. Your council will make mistakes, and given the scale of your operation, they will be major ones. But do you and the council feel the consequences of those mistakes? Probably not as much as the actual people they affect.
I get that you're likely a moral person now, but the saying "absolute power corrupts absolutely" exists for a reason. You would literally answer to no one, and there are very, very few people (possibly none) that could be trusted with that kind of authority in the long term.
Just to add my two cents to this discussion, I have a couple things. And these are coming from the side that I'm honestly not in favor of this system.
One is just a simple quote: One man's Utopia is another's Dystopia.
And the other is... going in a Spoiler for sensitive topics, but it's a fairly simple query for the Pro side.
Sensitive and/or Disturbing topics:
You do say multiple times that the only things forbidden are actions that hurt others. Well... what about self-harming actions? Is healing compulsory? Will a task force teleport into my living room and forcibly Heal me if I attempt to leave this world I disagree with through Suicide? If I (as a Depressed person) gave in to those darker thoughts in my mind and actually took a knife to my arm, trying to relieve my mental turmoil with the distraction of physical pain, would a Simulacrum who knows I was going to do so because of divination be kicking down my door to heal those wounds? Or even to forcibly stop me before the knife made contact? And remember, stuff like Depression isn't always the result of a physical affliction that something like Heal would be able to just "fix". If Heal could even deal with hormonal imbalances for that matter. So would you make someone suffer a torment that to them might be several times worse than the physical pain? Would you even know? You can't really know what's going on in someone's mind unless you use stuff like Detect Thoughts to read it, which is both an extreme violation of privacy and wouldn't actually get the deeper things anyways, and speaking from personal experience, talking to someone else can be almost impossible (I have a hard time talking to even my closest family about my issues, let alone what basically amounts to the cops.)
Not sure why people kept taking Reincarnate on previous pages. -- There's only an 11% you'll return as a human. Anything else and you'll get dissected in Area 51, or at least subjected to a proper hosedown.
Presumably there's a certain point at which they'd stop re-murdering dwarves and such in secret and move on to some other way of dealing with them if one is being a lackadaisical reincarnation bot, which is not the best of ideas anyway.
If one is becoming God-Emperor, then Dwarves and Elves and Troglodytes popping up are honestly probably the least of concerns for the peoples and governments of the world. Angels and Wizards apparently both exist would probably top the concern tree.
Sissyl wrote:
One problem with the simulacrum utopia is that they are precisely as smart as you. I.e. not very. I find it likely that even assuming pretty good smarts to start with and a +5 inherent bonus from wishes, you are woefully unequipped to deal with the world you set up.
You've just touched upon the true horrors of Snow Bureaucracy.
Although I believe if you can get any kind of critter with spellcasting planar bound, that opens up the possibility of getting them to make +6 items that will trickle down through the upper echelons and be granted to quizling researchers and the like.
Vrog Skyreaver wrote:
As an aside while still in the pool, I would point out that your argument about building a utopia gets a bit more convoluted if there are other people (say everyone who's posted a list on this thread) who also have the ability to cast their spell list (which is why I went back and added a second one with that caveat). Especially if they all decided that, like you, they were going to try and make the world a utopia as they see it. You might get some of them to ally with you, you might get some who find your ideals abhorrent. There would likely be some people who just want to watch everything burn.
Well, yes, you go from God-Emperor with the Snow Bureaucracy to post-apocalypse where humans and/or earth may no longer exist.
Same as any end-game with superpowers that isn't deliberately stacked up just so.
The only way to avoid that would be if the canniest players work something out between themselves and no one is of the type to go full entropy and destroy everything.
@Shinigami02's sensitive topic:
Spoiler:
We're talking about a theoretical regime that topples or takes control of every government in the world and institutes one person with a horde of copies of themselves forming a massive bureaucracy and army.
Preventing someone with depression from killing themselves and forcing them to get treatment if magic could not trivially eliminate the fundamental causes of their depression would be amongst the least of the wrongs that could be committed either intentionally or inadvertently.
Given that Heal fixes brain damage and out-and-out insanity beyond most forms of actual mental illness, I'd give fair odds that Heal can fix the fundamental neurochemical basis of things like depression. Whether it would be permanent barring some other catalyst event or if the person would naturally shift back over to a depressed mental and biochemical state would be potentially interesting to explore,
I suppose.
I hear you. It's a sensitive issue, and a tricky question from a political and moral standpoint. When are you justified in preventing an individual from harming themselves?
Often, this is understood as a trade-off between present and future preferences. So when you see someone taking a knife to their arm, you might rightly try to stop them, even though it may go against their desires in the moment, because it could save them from much unwanted pain and suffering over a longer period of time. Likewise, we see suicide as horrible because it is so permanent, because even when someone sincerely wishes to end their life they are also denying life to their countless future selves who might very well prefer to exist.
And you know what? In this newly envisioned world, we've kind of moved past that. Death isn't permanent, injury isn't permanent, if you make a horrible mistake the damage can usually be fixed. If someone jumps off a bridge and regrets it a half-second later, all they have to do is answer "yes" when asked if they want to come back to life.
With that in mind, the answer is clear. No, healing isn't compulsory. No, the guardian angels won't be breaking down your door. But they'll be there if you need them. Mental illness is treatable, and growing more so every day. And if you make a mistake, they'll be there to help you fix it.
ryric:
ryric wrote:
First, we are discussing bringing magic from a fantasy game into the real world. At no point is this at all IRL effective in solving the many real world problems that we all know exist, so the statement that those of us who would abhor your dystopia aren't providing other solutions to the problems isn't really germane to the discussion. We're talking about your "solution." If you want a real discussion about how to fix things I suggest a thread in Off Topic Discussions.
My point is that in evaluating whether these changes would make the world better or worse, we have to compare the hypothetical world with the world that exists right now. If people are going to object that the simulacra would have to lock up murderers to stop them from hurting people, it makes sense to respond that we already lock up murderers, and in much worse conditions than the simulacra would condone.
ryric wrote:
I haven't yet addressed the fact that you've created billions of copies of yourself. Congratulations, you are now the sole consumer of products and culture that actually matters. If you don't like it, no one will make it because why cater to the tiny fraction of real people that like a thing when you can produce for the god king and his slaves and have a guaranteed market of billions. Even if you eliminate money, those who create art in its various forms will cater to your tastes exclusively, because that is the path to attention and praise.
Again, this is a world where any material good can be created in about six seconds. Nobody has to spend time making anything that they don't want to make, and anything people like can be easily provided. As for art, I'm not sure you're accurately portraying the motivations of artists. If some people want to win the admiration of the multitudes of simulacra, they can feel free to do so. But plenty of others will just create the art that they want to create, and share it with others who want to see it. It's not like there aren't loads of artists already who enjoy making things for a niche audience, and now they won't have to worry about making money from it.
ryric wrote:
Having a council of smart people is a decent start, but what if they disagree with each other? What if you fundamentally disagree with them on something important? If we, as a species, knew how to fix all our problems we would have done it for at least some of them.
We have done it for some of them. We've done it for a lot of them. Compare the world today with the world of ten years ago, or a hundred, or a thousand. Humans are continually working together to overcome all sorts of obstacles, and problems thought to be impossible for one generation might be trivial for the next. Having access to plentiful magic doesn't change the basic methods for solving problems and making decisions, it just gives us the power needed to actually implement them.
ryric wrote:
Not everything wrong with the world is due to malice, so of it we just don't know how to solve. Your council will make mistakes, and given the scale of your operation, they will be major ones. But do you and the council feel the consequences of those mistakes? Probably not as much as the actual people they affect.
Yeah, there are some logistical problems we don't know how to solve. So we spam divination magic until we do. And then we talk about the proposed solutions, and spam more divination magic, and come up with better ones. And when we make mistakes, we do our best to fix them, and try again with the knowledge we've gained from our failure. Seriously, people keep acting like a problem being difficult to solve is a reason to not even try.
Asmodeus' Advocate:
Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
And while it is thought provoking, in the end I do not believe it is optimal. And this isn't just me instinctively flinching away from a plan that involves my death, at least, I don't believe it is. The general premise of your negative argument works just as well if I were to teleport to another planet and live out the rest of my days there, or give myself the same option that the simulacra have, to never again cast wish and live out life like an ordinary citizen. (I'd have one of the simulacra cast Geas on me to enforce it.)
Yeah, a geas-enforced exile is certainly a viable alternative to getting rid of the original caster entirely. I'd be a bit skeptical about its reliability, though, given that the spell explicitly states that "a clever recipient can subvert some instructions." That's much less comforting than issuing instructions to duplicates that "at all times remain under your absolute command," and come into being with a full understanding of what that command entails. The simulacra would have to return every couple weeks to refresh the geas, and all it takes is a single loophole for you to regain control of them all. If there's even a one in a million chance that you'd seize power and oppress billions, it might not be worth the risk
But if you think it would help us talk about the counterplan without undo bias, then by all means let us assume that the caster in question would be geased and exiled rather than turned to stone and blasted to pieces.
Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
No matter what is done, removing the ability to think and revise the plan when things go wrong, removing the ability to correct mistakes that we haven't seen yet as they become evident sounds like a recipe for disaster. The wording on the Simulacras' Geas would be paramount . . . but even the utmost care would be unlikely to prevent catastrophe, at some point in time.
That's definitely a concern I share, that we'd just be setting a dangerous machine in motion without anyone at the wheel to take control in an emergency. But here's the thing: the ability to think and revise and plan is still there, you just won't be the one doing the thinking. Humanity still has an enormous potential for creative problem-solving that they can exercise with or without you, and with the aid of the simulacra they've got a whole lot of resources to back them up. When a catastrophe inevitably arises, they can figure out what questions they need to get answered with divinations, and use the responses to figure out the next steps they need to take. You won't be at the wheel, but that doesn't mean that nobody will be.
Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
That, and if the simulacra don't intervene in wars, only acting after the fact to heal and raise the dead, that sounds like a lot of pain and suffering that could be avoided. And if the simulacra don't intervene in human rights violations, than that is impermissible, at least by my standard of right and wrong.
They won't be directly intervening, no, but they can still mass-produce permanent symbols of healing to render physical injury obsolete. They can still provide food and water and shelter and medicine to anyone who needs it. War and human rights violations won't just disappear, but they should be significantly less awful. It's hard to see how you could get much more than that without jeopardizing too much on the other end of the scale.
Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
But, if we were to write the Geas in such a way that it allowed intervention in mortal affairs (or, rather, less powerful immortal affairs) that introduces more complexity to the paramount Geas, which increases our chances of disastrous failure, and it also locks humanity into my current moral standard forever
I believe in my current moral standard quite strongly, but that idea still terrifies me. I wouldn't like to be locked into my current moral standard for my human lifespan, sure as hell I wouldn't do it to someone else for all eternity. Let alone everyone else. That, and it kind of beats the point of removing me from the equation, doesn't it, if those born into positions of power or with the abilities to acquire positions of power aren't free to exercise it?
Agreed. There's no point in trying to set up a non-dictatorial regime if you're not going to commit to it. Leaving your simulacra with instructions that infringe on personal liberty would be worse than just sticking around and managing them directly.
Oh, and it doesn't look like nine lives would be a worthwhile use of the eighth-level spell slot. The healing from the rejuvenate option wouldn't actually work, since damage to simulacra can only be repaired through that special 24 hour treatment.
I think I'd definitely go with glimpse of the akashic - for mental ability and skill checks alone, a +20 bonus that lasts an entire minute would be absolutely spectacular, and can't be comparably replicated with wish.
0 Create Water
1 Unseen Servant
2 Mud Buddy
3 Fly
4 Summon Monster 4
5 Teleport
6 Shadow Enchantment, Greater (the Shadow spells give me nearly 3 full schools)
7 Shadow Conjuration, Greater
8 Shadow Evocation Greater
9 Shades (I don't own a diamond for wish and don't want to cut myself for Blood Money)
Yeah, a geas-enforced exile is certainly a viable alternative to getting rid of the original caster entirely. I'd be a bit skeptical about its reliability, though, given that the spell explicitly states that "a clever recipient can subvert some instructions." That's much less comforting than issuing instructions to duplicates that "at all times remain under your absolute command," and come into being with a full understanding of what that command entails. The simulacra would have to return every couple weeks to refresh the geas, and all it takes is a single loophole for you to regain control of them all. If there's even a one in a million chance that you'd seize power and oppress billions, it might not be worth the risk
Geas lasts indefinitely until the mission is fulfilled, it only needs to be refreshed if the task is open ended. Turning any open ended task into a finite one is easy- just tell them to do the open ended task for an arbitrarily large number of years, or until the sun burns down to cold iron. Now the job has an easily defined ending point, and is no longer open ended. As for a clever recipient subverting it . . . well, the person trying to subvert it is the person who wrote it. Then again, they have had a lot more time to think about it. But two Geas should do the trick. The original, and then one that says to follow the original one in letter and spirit, and take no actions to attempt to subvert it.
Avoron wrote:
That's definitely a concern I share, that we'd just be setting a dangerous machine in motion without anyone at the wheel to take control in an emergency. But here's the thing: the ability to think and revise and plan is still there, you just won't be the one doing the thinking. Humanity still has an enormous potential for creative problem-solving that they can exercise with or without you, and with the aid of the simulacra they've got a whole lot of resources to back them up.
See, but one of my concerns is that the simulacra themselves would become the problem. They're following orders to the letter, and will continue to do so no matter what happens, as long as no one is changing their orders. What happens if there was something wrong with their orders, that wasn't realized at the time of the disintegration or Geas? A problem that can never be corrected, in the code of the new god, outside of human control?
Avoron wrote:
They won't be directly intervening, no, but they can still mass-produce permanent symbols of healing to render physical injury obsolete. They can still provide food and water and shelter and medicine to anyone who needs it. War and human rights violations won't just disappear, but they should be significantly less awful. It's hard to see how you could get much more than that without jeopardizing too much on the other end of the scale.
But is it jeopardizing too much on the other end of the scale? Why should random warlords, nobility, the hereditarily wealthy, and those who are good at moving pieces of paper around so that other people imagine that they have purchasing power, why should they decide what's best for humanity? Even if they can't kill people, why should they decide who is in charge and who is imprisoned because of their ethnicity or religion because the simulacra don't interfere, they only heal? (And can the simulacra beautify the prisons beyond just providing food? Make conditions better, cells larger? The answer to this question depends on how their commands, which cannot be reworded, were worded. And the answer to that question determines whether there was any point at all in pretending to give "humanity" (by which I mean those few humans with power) the reigns.) Reality isn't currently a democracy, just because there's no one person in charge doesn't mean that everyone has a vote.
I sympathize with those people who would rather not cede control . . . mentioned that I prefer not to myself, most of the time . . . but I did mention that I found the entire line of reasoning obviously fallacious.
On the topic of Nine Lives, where does it say simulacra can't be healed? I'm reading the spell description, and it says that, " If reduced to 0 hit points or otherwise destroyed, it reverts to snow and melts instantly into nothingness. A complex process requiring at least 24 hours, 100 gp per hit point, and a fully equipped magical laboratory can repair damage to a simulacrum," but I can't find where it says they can't be healed by other means.
And on the topic of Form of the Akashic . . . what's the caster level? If it's hit dice, that's a fairly useless spell. But then, I know a lot of monsters whose caster level is different from their hit dice, so we don't know anything. I do know monsters whose caster level is lower than any PC's can be if they want to cast as spells the monster's spell like abilities, so that doesn't tell us anything either.
Not sure why people kept taking Reincarnate on previous pages. -- There's only an 11% you'll return as a human. Anything else and you'll get dissected in Area 51
Because it's the only way, really, to prolong your life beyond 120 years or so. It would be a waste to take Remove Disease and Resurrection away from humanity after a few decades just because you don't want to have long ears.
Quote:
Its other problem is that you obviously cannot cast it on yourself.
Not sure why people kept taking Reincarnate on previous pages. -- There's only an 11% you'll return as a human. Anything else and you'll get dissected in Area 51
Because it's the only way, really, to prolong your life beyond 120 years or so. It would be a waste to take Remove Disease and Resurrection away from humanity after a few decades just because you don't want to have long ears.
Quote:
Its other problem is that you obviously cannot cast it on yourself.
0 - Prestidigitation - Does pretty much anything minor.
1 - Charm person - I can never win friends and influence people. Now I can!
2 - Invisibility - Unlike in Office Space, now I don't have to hide in my cubicle when the boss comes around.
3 - Remove disease - Given the cost of health care, this is a no-brainer.
4 - Greater make whole - I suck at mechanical stuff and can never seem to find a plumber or handyman.
5 - Dominate person - For when the Millennials at work decide that stuff like "deadlines" are someone else's problem.
6 - Greater scrying - Yeah, judge away. But, seriously, I'd end up using this to supersede Netflix, Hulu, and all the rest by tuning in directly.
7 - Greater teleport - World travel without the cost or jet lag.
8 - Regenerate - Yes, I know it's only 7th, but I really don't need something like irresistible dance.
9 - Foresight - I have a 3-year-old, so this is almost essential. But if I didn't... there's endless fun to be had with time stop (if you don't believe me, read Vance's Rialto the Marvellous).
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
