Re: Medtech a la Los

G'day again Adrian,

>And a good one to you, all the way down there in the warm sunny south,
from
>we here in the cold, miserable north :)

Well actually after a very mild winter we're having a truly atrocious
summer, its currently about 11 deg C out, biting winds and raining so
hard
you can't see 3 ft in front of you... but thanks for the thought ;)

I guess we both think about this in the same general way, but I wouldn't
mind expanding on a couple of points that you mention here.

>But that aside, Los raised the
>interesting point "they'd make great badguys!" - which I agree with.

Guess I agree too - after all I now have a fully fledged Dalek army
(expendible clones with attitude) - its just putting it in more human
terms
starts to push my suspension of disbelief.

>Thinking of themselves as expendible?	Hmm.  If they are socialized
with a
>moral structure that recognizes the idea of personal value and self
worth
>as an individual, then expendibility/personal value would have some
>meaning.  So don't let them socialize that way - starting from age
zero.

Mmmm, without socialisation of any form you may as well have size 1
units
because there's going to be NO unit cohesion, socialisation starts from
the
moment you're born and insures we work together to get things done,
without
it society falls apart. Individuals who are ostracised or isolated soon
after birth don't function in group situations (which a squad would be)
well, if at all. I've never been in the army myself, but from the
stories
I've heard my grandfathers and Derek recount its the unit cohesion that
often gets you throigh when by all accounts you shouldn't. Same goes for
Antarctic or deep water expeditions and all manner of other events.
Clones
as you outline them here would be fine as bullet catchers, but wouldn't
be
able to effectively retaliate in any form - might as well give 'normal'
humans extra armour to soak up that fire, lot cheaper.

>Remember this human race of ours is the same one that convinced Iranian
>children to walk into mine fields ahead of their troops...

Suprisingly enough there's many more Iranians, Romanians etc etc who are
horrified by what happened. There are such stories of human abuse
through
out history and in every case where there's been a bit of time under the
bridge the worm has turned.

>but you keep them in small enough numbers to be manageable in groups,
and
>don't let them communicate inter-group.  

Then how do you get them to operate as an integrated fighting force who
can
use their numbers (the prime reason everybody gave for having them in
the
first place) to adavantage?

>and if any rebel, you cash in
>their entire unit (in a really ugly way) and show footage to all the
>others, telling them how the rebels were "disloyal"....  etc. 
Propaganda,
>brainwashing, controlled socialization, very limited communication, NO
>knowledge of anything outside their immediate "community" etc etc etc

That might well all work as you envisage, I just don't think it actually
would. Often all it takes are individuals who hit upon and verbalise
some
undercurrent the rest can't quite put words too and then the touch paper
has been lit - cashing in the unit may just make them martyrs...

>here's a wild thought.  how about not teaching them speech.  teach them
>what they need to do on the battle field (remember, basic battle drills
>guided by a "real" human staff) using compliance training - but don't
let
>them develop the sophisticated communication abilities necessary to
discuss

>things like rebelling amongst themselves. 

Once again, how do they then function as an integrated whole? I know in
the
past that I've said you can have quite sentient alien races without
speech,
but these communicate in other ways. Without communication (and the
abstract thought and perceptions which accompany it at even very simple
levels) how am I going to tell you to duck so I can shoot the mother of
a
tank behind you?

>Keep them away from
>philosophical/moral concepts like "rights", "personal value",
>"individuality", etc.	Keep them, as much as possible, from thinking in
>those terms and talking to each other about it.  

Unfortunately individuality/rights seem to be notions almost inborn in
the
human psyche. Children have such temper fits because they are testing
and
exploring their individuality and rights. My soon to be 6 yr old son
right
now is being a right royal pain in the behind because, like all kids his
age, he thinks that he's the first to have invented questioning
authority
and if I can do something or stay up late or go somewhere then why the
hell
can't he? 

>If you have to provide them with some kind of moral framework, then
give
>them a very basic one that justifies the kind of behavior you want out
of
>them.

It almost seems a product of evolution to covet what others have - its
one
of the basic behaviours observed in all metacellular life - so if those
clones see that their officers have got something they don't then sooner
or
later you may well have big trouble on your hands whatever you teach
them.
Delving into sci-fi to try and illustrate my point here (and trying not
to
give too much away from the books concerned), the Psi-corp in Bab 5 was
originally created to protect teeps from mundanes (who went about
slaughtering something that unknown and thus frightening them), and
those
raised in the corp were taught to look after each other first and
foremost,
but their were dissenters even there - the one being who seems to have
followed the teaching to the letter is seen by everybody else as the
arch
villian of the piece...

>um...	the Russian revolution ...

OK, maybe it was a poor example, but the repeated unrest across the
countryside from the times of the many Ivans onwards would suggest that
all
it took was the smallest spark regardless of where you were in Russia.

>...but I get your point...

phew ;)

>so you don't let the clone troopers develop enough knowledge to be able
to
>compare their lives to something "better"... at least not at first.  

Unfortunately the point I'm labouring to make (sorry about drawing this
out) is that to have enough knowledge to function on the battlefield
they
will have already acquired too much not too make comparisons between
"better" and "worse"

>And maybe part of the "limited lifespan" of the clone armies (not just
the
>accellerated aging effects of the vat grown clones) is the eventual
>development of enough social consciousness to start making this kind of
>value comparison.  

Good idea, but I think it'll happen even quicker than you anticipate.

>Some sense of self-preservation would probably be required.
>But it could be controlled, perhaps.	(I don't like this train of
thought
>very much)

You're not alone there!

>Having said that, I wonder if given the right infrastructure and
political
>commitment, a nation (of bad guys, obviously) might be able to do
something
>like this.  It would make for a really high motivation to beat them,
that's
>for sure.  I'd have very few moral qualms about fighting if they were
the
>enemy...

That may well be another very important point Adrian. Like I said, I've
never been in an army and maybe to some extent I'm romanticising the
motivations involved, but I've always had a sense that the greatest
achievements were made and the greatest privations survived when the
motivating force came form one of humanities higher ideals (compassion,
duty, honour, love etc) 

Anyway better call this rambling quits before I get too carried away.

Cheers

Beth

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Elizabeth Fulton
c/o CSIRO Division of Marine Research
GPO Box 1538
HOBART 
TASMANIA 7001
AUSTRALIA
Phone (03) 6232 5018 International +61 3 6232 5018
Fax 03 6232 5053 International +61 3 6232 5053

email: beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au