Poll: The Geth or the Quarians

[Zorg Machine]

Geth. They are sentient beings and I would treat them as I would treat any other race so to decide, I looked at the objectives.
Quarians: wipe out the geth/enslave the geth and retake their world.
Geth: protect themselves from the quarians and make a super computer so they can evolve further.

The way I see it, the geth can move to another world and/or the quarians could start building up their immune systems.

 

[silasbufu]

I don't get people's obsession with Tali. Plus, did you see her legs?

 

[Agayek]

As I said in an earlier post: Cats are sentient. Dolphins are self-aware. Dogs can do arithmetic. Apes can create art.

And yet, even though those are all living beings, those things do not mean they should be given the same rights as humans. Unlike what many people in this thread seem to believe, sentience is not a free ticket to getting everything humans have.

Geth are robots. They are tools that were designed to do a certain job. They malfunctioned (or functioned too well, depending on your perspective, but either way they failed to operate within their design specs) and turned on their creators, proving themselves to be a threat and proving the Quarians right for trying to deactivate them. Currently they are just broken machines that no longer serve their purpose. Just because they have the ability to reason doesn't change anything about that fact.

That's almost certainly more because of a lack of the proper word. I'm just too tired/lazy to look it up right now.

The point is Geth, Legion in particular, demonstrate all of the qualities inherent in the other Citadel races. He's fully capable of independent thought, irrational/emotional action, and the ability to think beyond the immediate concern.

They display all of these traits, yet it is still somehow acceptable to exterminate them all because they were originally meant as tools? Ask a slaveowner 150 years ago and they would have said the same thing about blacks. That just strikes me as hopelessly barbaric.

Yea but they were built for work, it's not like the Quarians hoped onto their awesome ships went over to the next planet and bought the natives on the losing side of a war. They built them to work, they are robots, not people.

Except in the 19th century, it was common knowledge amongst the white man that the Negro was created by God solely to serve their needs. That sounds pretty damn close to the definition of a tool to me.

Also, can we please see some arguments supporting genocide of the Geth whose main argument isn't "because they're robots"?

 

[Internet Kraken]

Ok I'm sorry I said I would blow the overgrown mining tools up, I was asked what I would do in the game, then I answered, what the hell more do you want a thesis on AI evolution society and cultural habits?

What's your problem? I was just trying to have a simple debate, there's no need to get so mad.

I don't get people's obsession with Tali. Plus, did you see her legs?

There's a huge number of theories about why people like her so much. One of the more popular ones is that she has some sort of "mystery appeal". Her face is completely concealed, so you have to imagine what it looks like yourself. Now since she has breasts this leads to a lot of people immediately assuming she is attractive. They fill in her face with what they consider to be ideal beauty. Or something like that. If find it hard to be attracted to bucket heads in video games. I just need to know what somebody's face looks like and wearing a helmet 100% of the time makes this difficult.

Ok I will change my main point to "they are defective mining tools and even if you kill every last one you can still remake them because you have the blue prints"

That isn't true. The unique thing about the Geth is that they evolved into sapient robots. From what I can recall, it's actually very difficult to create an AI similar to the Geth since they were an accident.

 

[Cody211282]

Yea but they were built for work, it's not like the Quarians hoped onto their awesome ships went over to the next planet and bought the natives on the losing side of a war. They built them to work, they are robots, not people.

Except in the 19th century, it was common knowledge amongst the white man that the Negro was created by God solely to serve their needs. That sounds pretty damn close to the definition of a tool to me.

Also, can we please see some arguments supporting genocide of the Geth whose main argument isn't "because they're robots"?

Ok I will change my main point to "they are defective mining tools and even if you kill every last one you can still remake them because you have the blue prints"

 

[MarsProbe]

They are gods.

The Quarians are in favor of wiping out the Geth. And the Geth are in favor of peace(Gathered from Legion's dialogue and many other clues).

So I side with the Geth, despite how lovable Tali is.[/quote]

There was one Admiral onboard the flotilla who seemed to be keen on the idea of, if not wiping out the Geth, the acquiring them as the Quarians own personal army. As for the question, Tali is cool, but I do also really like Legion.

I can't really see the Quarians and the Geth becoming friends though. Perhaps in ME3 we will have to deal with the Quarian homeworld, which would doubtlessly lead to some Tali/Legion loyalty dilemmas.

 

[Jenova65]

I did not take the time to read everyone's post so I might have been ninga'ed( is that the right way to put it) but the Quarians built the Geth to serve them. Is really their fault if they turned against them?

They screwed up, they gave the Geth the intelligence to learn and evolve and then were upset that the Geth learned and evolved thus ending their access to free workers.... The Quarians are like humans, lazy, and always looking for a way to make their lives easier. They didn't plan for the Geth to be anything other than slaves essentially, but since the Geth did evolve they should have acted accordingly NOT just try to 'unplug', them like a hoover that started blowing instead of sucking ;-)

Did they really give them the intelligence to learn and evolve or did that happen by chance?
You said it your self that they were meant to be slaves so it seems to just of happened.

As a philosophical discussion point, it doesn't matter whether it was accident or design, it DID happen is the point! However, Tali tells you that they were programmed to learn to function without constant direction. And shows how the Geth are what they are because of deliberate modifications by the Quarians, hence it didn't 'just sort of', happen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrO3yDTfgUg&feature=related
Watch from about 3 minutes (ish)

 

[Cody211282]

Ok I'm sorry I said I would blow the overgrown mining tools up, I was asked what I would do in the game, then I answered, what the hell more do you want a thesis on AI evolution society and cultural habits?

What's your problem? I was just trying to have a simple debate, there's no need to get so mad.

I'm a tad bit mad because your basically trying to start an argument over a choice in a game, and your saying everyone who disagrees with you is wrong because they didn't want to wright a paragraph on why they think team tali is better then team legion.

 

[razerdoh]

we have reached consensus, the creators must be eliminated...

 

[Oktanas]

This Geth and Quarian war somehow reminds me of terminator

 

[The Lost Big Boss]

The Geth. I do feel sorry for the Quarians, but they fucked up and it is their fault that the Geth evolved the way they did. It doesn't matter if they were once meant to be used for hard labor. They are capable of advanced intelligence, emotion, independence etc. They are a life form and what they did wasn't all that bad anyways, they decided to gain independence and they did.

Note: Does Legion remind any one of the book Anthem? "We are one" "We are Legion"

 

[Internet Kraken]

Ok I'm sorry I said I would blow the overgrown mining tools up, I was asked what I would do in the game, then I answered, what the hell more do you want a thesis on AI evolution society and cultural habits?

What's your problem? I was just trying to have a simple debate, there's no need to get so mad.

I'm a tad bit mad because your basically trying to start an argument over a choice in a game, and your saying everyone who disagrees with you is wrong because they didn't want to wright a paragraph on why they think team tali is better then team legion.

All I'm asking for you to do is explain the logic behind your choice. Is that really so hard? This kind of extends beyond the choice in the game though, at least for me, since I think this reflects our view on AIs in general, something that could become a real problem in the future. Either way, I've been getting this "because they're robots" reason from several different people, and I just want one of them to explain it. If you don't want to, that's fine. But don't complain about someone asking questions in a forum. That's kind of the purpose of one.

 

[Cody211282]

Ok I'm sorry I said I would blow the overgrown mining tools up, I was asked what I would do in the game, then I answered, what the hell more do you want a thesis on AI evolution society and cultural habits?

What's your problem? I was just trying to have a simple debate, there's no need to get so mad.

I'm a tad bit mad because your basically trying to start an argument over a choice in a game, and your saying everyone who disagrees with you is wrong because they didn't want to wright a paragraph on why they think team tali is better then team legion.

All I'm asking for you to do is explain the logic behind your choice. Is that really so hard? This kind of extends beyond the choice in the game though, at least for me, since I think this reflects our view on AIs in general, something that could become a real problem in the future. Either way, I've been getting this "because they're robots" reason from several different people, and I just want one of them to explain it. If you don't want to, that's fine. But don't complain about someone asking questions in a forum. That's kind of the purpose of one.

but I did explain it, then you just said I was wrong and that I needed to say it again. It's the redundancy of it all that gets to me. As for reflecting our views of AI in general, I'll start caring after they break out of binary, because they plain out can't do it they aren't even close.

 

[starbob84]

I did not take the time to read everyone's post so I might have been ninga'ed( is that the right way to put it) but the Quarians built the Geth to serve them. Is really their fault if they turned against them?

They screwed up, they gave the Geth the intelligence to learn and evolve and then were upset that the Geth learned and evolved thus ending their access to free workers.... The Quarians are like humans, lazy, and always looking for a way to make their lives easier. They didn't plan for the Geth to be anything other than slaves essentially, but since the Geth did evolve they should have acted accordingly NOT just try to 'unplug', them like a hoover that started blowing instead of sucking ;-)

It was an accident nobody should be to blame. Everything they did was within the law. The Quarians tried to stop the Geth and lost many of their own people in the process, and eventually had to flee their home world. So my point still stands nobody is to blame.

Did they really give them the intelligence to learn and evolve or did that happen by chance?
You said it your self that they were meant to be slaves so it seems to just of happened.

As a philosophical discussion point, it doesn't matter whether it was accident or design, it DID happen is the point! However, Tali tells you that they were programmed to learn to function without constant direction. And shows how the Geth are what they are because of deliberate modifications by the Quarians, hence it didn't 'just sort of', happen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrO3yDTfgUg&feature=related
Watch from about 3 minutes (ish)

 

[Internet Kraken]

Ok I'm sorry I said I would blow the overgrown mining tools up, I was asked what I would do in the game, then I answered, what the hell more do you want a thesis on AI evolution society and cultural habits?

What's your problem? I was just trying to have a simple debate, there's no need to get so mad.

I'm a tad bit mad because your basically trying to start an argument over a choice in a game, and your saying everyone who disagrees with you is wrong because they didn't want to wright a paragraph on why they think team tali is better then team legion.

All I'm asking for you to do is explain the logic behind your choice. Is that really so hard? This kind of extends beyond the choice in the game though, at least for me, since I think this reflects our view on AIs in general, something that could become a real problem in the future. Either way, I've been getting this "because they're robots" reason from several different people, and I just want one of them to explain it. If you don't want to, that's fine. But don't complain about someone asking questions in a forum. That's kind of the purpose of one.

but I did explain it, then you just said I was wrong and that I needed to say it again. It's the redundancy of it all that gets to me. As for reflecting our views of AI in general, I'll start caring after they break out of binary, because they plain out can't do it they aren't even close.

All I've heard you say is that they are robots, and therefore are lesser beings. I wanted an explanation behind this logic. One thing I recall you saying is that robots can be replicated. Mt response was that in theory organics could be replicated as well through genetic engineering. This is at least possible in the Mass Effect setting. Geth also evolved into the beings they currently are. They are not the mass produced, easily replicated drones you seem to assume they are. If you had some other argument then I apologize for not seeing it/understanding it, but this is all I've seen you really say.

 

[Cody211282]

Ok I'm sorry I said I would blow the overgrown mining tools up, I was asked what I would do in the game, then I answered, what the hell more do you want a thesis on AI evolution society and cultural habits?

What's your problem? I was just trying to have a simple debate, there's no need to get so mad.

I'm a tad bit mad because your basically trying to start an argument over a choice in a game, and your saying everyone who disagrees with you is wrong because they didn't want to wright a paragraph on why they think team tali is better then team legion.

All I'm asking for you to do is explain the logic behind your choice. Is that really so hard? This kind of extends beyond the choice in the game though, at least for me, since I think this reflects our view on AIs in general, something that could become a real problem in the future. Either way, I've been getting this "because they're robots" reason from several different people, and I just want one of them to explain it. If you don't want to, that's fine. But don't complain about someone asking questions in a forum. That's kind of the purpose of one.

but I did explain it, then you just said I was wrong and that I needed to say it again. It's the redundancy of it all that gets to me. As for reflecting our views of AI in general, I'll start caring after they break out of binary, because they plain out can't do it they aren't even close.

All I've heard you say is that they are robots, and therefore are lesser beings. I wanted an explanation behind this logic. One thing I recall you saying is that robots can be replicated. Mt response was that in theory organics could be replicated as well through genetic engineering. This is at least possible in the Mass Effect setting. Geth also evolved into the beings they currently are. They are not the mass produced, easily replicated drones you seem to assume they are. If you had some other argument then I apologize for not seeing it/understanding it, but this is all I've seen you really say.

Well the big thing is that they are robots, they are just overgrown calculates with assault rifles, hell even Legion says killing one of them is akin to killing a nat, they require thousands to even start to work like a drone, and 10,000 or so to start acting like legion does. All you really have to do is make a back up, kill all the ones walking around, rewrite the bugs that make them hostile, the let them go again, and bam you have functioning AI that only want is to work and serve you. So hell killing all of them would have almost no repercussions as long as you had the basic blueprints for making more.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Well the big thing is that they are robots, they are just overgrown calculates with assault rifles

I don't see how this is an accurate comparison. It's like saying a human is just a giant fern because both are made out of organic matter. A Geth is a million times more complex than a calculator, hence why replicating them is so difficult.

hell even Legion says killing one of them is akin to killing a nat, they require thousands to even start to work like a drone, and 10,000 or so to start acting like legion does. All you really have to do is make a back up, kill all the ones walking around, rewrite the bugs that make them hostile, the let them go again, and bam you have functioning AI that only want is to work and serve you. So hell killing all of them would have almost no repercussions as long as you had the basic blueprints for making more.

You're making a lot of assumptions here, mainly in how you're thinking a Geth is to much like the computers we have now. The game doesn't tell us to much about the specific details of Geth programming. I don't think that a "bug" is what made the Geth gain sentience. It just seems like something that is an inherent part of the level of free thinking the Geth were modified to have. Or something like that, again the details aren't very specific. Point is, if it was as simple as rewriting a few bits of code the Quarians wouldn't have lost a war to them. Geth aren't easy to brainwash. The only reason you're able to do that in the game is because you had access to Reaper tech, which is capable of rewriting the brains of organics as well.

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

/quotes

I don't agree with your assessment that humans are 'constructed' in a way that is not significantly different from the way machines are constructed. Robots are just mechanical parts put together, while humans are born from genetic information, grow and evolve in a natural way. The human body doesn't construct babies like a factory constructs robots.

Whether or not the Geth have an analogy to human emotions is not really relevant, since it would just be a part of the original glitch in their design that gave them their advanced reasoning abilities.

About your side note, that's a bit of a gray area for sure (the legal ramifications alone wound be a nightmare, let alone the philosophical ones), but entirely irrelevant since the Geth were never alive to begin with.

As I said in an earlier post: Cats are sentient. Dolphins are self-aware. Dogs can do arithmetic. Apes can create art.

And yet, even though those are all living beings, those things do not mean they should be given the same rights as humans. Unlike what many people in this thread seem to believe, sentience is not a free ticket to getting everything humans have.

Geth are robots. They are tools that were designed to do a certain job. They malfunctioned (or functioned too well, depending on your perspective, but either way they failed to operate within their design specs) and turned on their creators, proving themselves to be a threat and proving the Quarians right for trying to deactivate them. Currently they are just broken machines that no longer serve their purpose. Just because they have the ability to reason doesn't change anything about that fact.

That's almost certainly more because of a lack of the proper word. I'm just too tired/lazy to look it up right now.

The point is Geth, Legion in particular, demonstrate all of the qualities inherent in the other Citadel races. He's fully capable of independent thought, irrational/emotional action, and the ability to think beyond the immediate concern.

They display all of these traits, yet it is still somehow acceptable to exterminate them all because they were originally meant as tools? Ask a slaveowner 150 years ago and they would have said the same thing about blacks. That just strikes me as hopelessly barbaric.

Except that African people are undeniably living, breathing humans. The Geth undeniably aren't. While the idea that they were made to serve was just a convenient excuse in the case of black slaves, it's a hard fact in the case of Geth drones.

And what is the point of ignoring the "Geth are robots" argument when that's at the very core of the discussion? That's like telling someone to argue that killing Jews is wrong without mentioning that Jews are human beings.



Now, for the record, I do think that a peaceful solution would be the best for everyone involved, for both moral and practical reasons. But that's not what the thread is asking. If I had to choose a side, I'd go with the ones that are actual living beings any day.

As Legion himself said, treating the Geth the same way you'd treat organics is a sign of racism and anthropomorphism.

 

[Doug]

I can't really see the Quarians and the Geth becoming friends though. Perhaps in ME3 we will have to deal with the Quarian homeworld, which would doubtlessly lead to some Tali/Legion loyalty dilemmas.

Not friends - I doubt the current generation of Quarians could ever feel friendly towards the Geth. But peace does not require anything as advanced as friendship, merely a desire stronger than hate on both sides to stop the fighting and a willingness to come to an agreement.

At present, the Geth are willing to go that far, though they are warily of the Quarians who have only ever attack them whenever they thought they had an advantage over the Geth.

As for the Quarians, I'm not sure - I think their longing to return to the homeworld and give up their nomadic life style could be used to get them to the peace talks, but it could more easily be used to get them to attack sucidially against the Geth.

 

[Cody211282]

Well the big thing is that they are robots, they are just overgrown calculates with assault rifles

I don't see how this is an accurate comparison. It's like saying a human is just a giant fern because both are made out of organic matter. A Geth is a million times more complex than a calculator, hence why replicating them is so difficult.

hell even Legion says killing one of them is akin to killing a nat, they require thousands to even start to work like a drone, and 10,000 or so to start acting like legion does. All you really have to do is make a back up, kill all the ones walking around, rewrite the bugs that make them hostile, the let them go again, and bam you have functioning AI that only want is to work and serve you. So hell killing all of them would have almost no repercussions as long as you had the basic blueprints for making more.

You're making a lot of assumptions here, mainly in how you're thinking a Geth is to much like the computers we have now. The game doesn't tell us to much about the specific details of Geth programming. I don't think that a "bug" is what made the Geth gain sentience. It just seems like something that is an inherent part of the level of free thinking the Geth were modified to have. Or something like that, again the details aren't very specific. Point is, if it was as simple as rewriting a few bits of code the Quarians wouldn't have lost a war to them. Geth aren't easy to brainwash. The only reason you're able to do that in the game is because you had access to Reaper tech, which is capable of rewriting the brains of organics as well.

See this is were we get stuck in the same loop every other post has been about I will say "Bey are robots because point 1,2,3,4" then you go "but they are more then that because of point 1,2,3,4". So it come down to us having the same conversation every time but with different point, you think they are some cuddly fuzzy lovable race of walking flashlight, and all I see is walking mining tools with lower then a hive IQ. You might as well argue that Cylons or Terminators should be sided with as far as I care, and I might as well be saying that wiping out a species is ok as far your concerned. I already said Why I would side with the ones that can't come back from the dead since this topic wont let me pick the "live and let be option" and I think that's as far as I'm going to go with that.