Mediators

superluminal

superluminal

I am MalcomR
Valued Senior Member
Possibly in the wrong forum but, meh, someone will move it if they want. All of the amazingly conflicting and raging arguments here in religion got me to thinking...

Has anyone here ever read a science fiction novel called "The Mote in God's Eye"? (Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle)

**** SPOILERS **** (in case anyone cares to read it first...)

The aliens in this book have been intelligent for literally millions of years longer than humanity, but due to an inability to control their breeding (they die if they dont breed and they don't have any good way to control it chemically) and a warlike nature, the've been smashing themselves back to the stone age as soon as they reach a technological level to do it. They call it the "cycles". Over these millions of years they've bred "mediators" who are a sterile subspecies. These mediators are incredibly pursuasive and adept at identifying with both sides of an argument. They are neutral in all things. They have almost unlimited power to gain transportation in order to bring parties together to settle disputes before fighting starts. Their purpose is to stave off voilent conflict and another cycle as long as possible.

I wonder if something like this is in our future? Maybe not a sterile hybrid human, but some form of formalized world-wide mediator system that all nations must abide by? I don't know how you'd pull it off but...
 
Mote was better than the sequel. But IIRC all of the mediators assigned to humans went nuts... and we can do that without help from a genetically bred subspecies. :D
 
Oli said:
Mote was better than the sequel. But IIRC all of the mediators assigned to humans went nuts... and we can do that without help from a genetically bred subspecies. :D
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Yes, but they went "nuts" (crazy eddie) because they were assigned to aliens (humans).

Oh, I can see this thread's gonna get moved already... :(
 
The humans will get together and kill the mediators and then go back to killing each other
 
Yes, but they went "nuts" (crazy eddie) because they were assigned to aliens (humans).
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Yeah. But the way we were REALLY alien from them was our society - (giri/ gimu?) There was no structure that the mediators could work with because humans can hold so many conflicting views and allegiances at the same time.
So any human mediator would identify absolutely with both parties and probably invade himself first for not giving in to his own reasonable demands.
 
Oli said:
Yeah. But the way we were REALLY alien from them was our society - (giri/ gimu?) There was no structure that the mediators could work with because humans can hold so many conflicting views and allegiances at the same time.
So any human mediator would identify absolutely with both parties and probably invade himself first for not giving in to his own reasonable demands.
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Pessimist.
 
Well what's the difference between this concept and the united nations - practically all they can do is add more flags out the front of their headquarters as communities break down into smaller denominations due to conflict - and before the UN ther was the league of nations - and before that, when napolean tore Europe in half there was something else (the treaty of versailles???)

Its the same thing everytime - a certain unbalanced level of economic develops and then gradually the idea of "this is the war we have to have" permeates all levels of society which causes all the young men (and often women and children and old people too) to get sent off to die like animals, then they get back together again and set up some body of mediation with the vow "Never again"

Mediation is very difficult in an environment where people heed nothing but their petty desires. To tie this in with something religious, the solution lies in being able to control your senses.
 
Pessimist.
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Life does that to you :D
It's a good idea - but who'd surrender their sovereignty to an international body? I've read about individuals in the US armed forces resigning rather than join a UN peace-keeping force, so how likely is that politicians higher up the chain of command will acquiesce to a "mutually satisfactory arrangement" when they've got their eye on the prize? (Whatever it may be).
Go back a few decades and get a good diplomat to talk to Hitler - he was utterly convinced that the UK and France wouldn't really stand up to him. Maybe an independant negotiator could have brought him across to Britain and showed the forces we had, and then taken him to a few cabinet meeetings to show how determined we were to come to Poland's aid (rather late, though).
It may just have made him think twice, but it may also have given him a better idea of what he'd be facing in a war and make him build up his forces even more.
You might be able to stave off a few of the smaller conflicts, but I don't think it would work for the larger ones. Japan went to war mainly for the resources it would need in a few years/ decades, and that belonged to it by "right". Would the US have given some of those resources to Japan for the asking?
Could anyone have convinced the US in the fifties that the USSR wasn't an evil force, or make the USSR believe that the US would adopt a live and let live policy towards Communist expansion?
 
superluminal said:
Let's assume the human version. I'm only proposing a similar thing, obviously.
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It is good that you admit that humans can never reach a permanent state of peace in their current form. :) Well done.


All Praise The Ancient Of Days
 
lightgigantic said:
Well what's the difference between this concept and the united nations - practically all they can do is add more flags out the front of their headquarters as communities break down into smaller denominations due to conflict - and before the UN ther was the league of nations - and before that, when napolean tore Europe in half there was something else (the treaty of versailles???)
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ROTFLMAO.
Your history is all messed up, Napoleon Bonaparte http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95aug/napoleon.html was over a hundred years earlier, than the versaille treaty(great war/Ist world war), if you dont know history, you could always read War and Peace by Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy.
http://www.ccel.org/t/tolstoy/
 
superluminal said:
Has anyone here ever read a science fiction novel called "The Mote in God's Eye"? (Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle)
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Yes - a while ago. Quite entertaining, IIRC, but I can't remember much of the detail. I might just read it again!

superluminal said:
I wonder if something like this is in our future? Maybe not a sterile hybrid human, but some form of formalized world-wide mediator system that all nations must abide by? I don't know how you'd pull it off but...
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I think that if there is something like this in our future then that mediator will be an AI - using raw fact, rather than emotion, to determine its results.

I'm sure there's been many Scifi books / films with that as the premise (everyone obeying a grand central computer)?
 
I think that if there is something like this in our future then that mediator will be an AI - using raw fact, rather than emotion, to determine its results.
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But politicians only agree that computer results are "correct" when those results accord with their own thinking. :D
Country A has increasing population and small territory/ resources.
Country B has a small population and abundant resources/ territory.
Logical solution: shift some of the population from A to B. (Or kill them since B's population is increasing slowly and they'll need the resources in the future).
Who's going to go with that?
 
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