Silicon Avatar commentary: Good acting, bad writing

[Timo]

Perhaps Data was especially sympathetic to the CE for the same reason Lore had once found the creature so close to his heart? Lore might have attributed his connection to the fact that they both had the soul of a mass murderer, but in reality there may have been deeper chemistry (or, rather, physics) between the CE and Soongian androids. That would give Data the incentive to be that extra bit cruel with Marr in the end...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ModusOperandi]

No, because animals aren't sentient, therefore we have a right to kill them for food as long as we treat them with as little cruelty as possible during the process.

Which is a bullshit argument, as their sentience or lack thereof is no way different from the sentience or lack thereof of the CE's fodder. That is, it is different from the sentience of the hungry party, which is sufficient for making the eater entitled to the eating if he so feels.

I mean, clearly you feel that way.

So you're saying that we have no ethical right to kill animals for food? Come on.

The sentience I'm referring to is obviously the kind of intelligent self-awareness that we have so far found only humans to possess. Sentient beings of our sort (and the alien races depicted in Star Trek) have an inherent right to life as long as it does not deprive the lives of others. (Infants and the mentally challenged are edge cases which we assign to the same category because of their potential for nominal humanity and because of the difficulty and danger in setting an arbitrary threshold of brain power.) The CE violated that by consuming the colonies. It needed to be stopped, but communication was necessary to determine to what degree it understood its actions were wrong, and to what extent it could be made to alter its behavior. If it was unable or unwilling to see reason, it would have to be confined or destroyed. None of that is selfish; it is ethical and just.

all rights are purely selfish when one gets down to it.

What kind of ridiculous moral relativism is this? If all rights are purely selfish, then all ethical systems have equal weight, and there is nothing but might makes right.

That would give Data the incentive to be that extra bit cruel with Marr in the end.

Data wasn't being cruel, merely honest. Marr was wrong to do what she did, and he called her on it. He analyzed the personality of her son through his journals and decided that he would be disappointed with her.

Timo, do you really see Data as a cruel or dishonest person? His character throughout the series has been portrayed as exactly the opposite.

 

[Timo]

So you're saying that we have no ethical right to kill animals for food? Come on.

Of course we can decide we have the ethical right to kill animals for food. But it then follows that we cannot logically have the ethical right to deny other lifeforms the killing of humans for food.

We can of course demand that right illogically. After all, it's our lives at stake there. Rights and logic are seldom related anyway. And since might makes right, it's unlikely we could ever decide whether another intellect has the right to eat us or not, if said intellect were more powerful than us. Fortunately, the CE seemed weaker than the armed forces of the Federation, even if more powerful than the unarmed ones.

The sentience I'm referring to is obviously the kind of intelligent self-awareness that we have so far found only humans to possess.

Which is again bullshit. There's nothing we would uniquely possess today. And our 24th century heroes are equally at loss to define sentience in "us vs. them" terms, or else the question would have been decisively answered in "The Measure of a Man". Instead, a leading AI expert stumbles and fumbles in coming up with a makeshift definition, which the layman Picard then proceeds to demolish.

If all rights are purely selfish, then all ethical systems have equal weight, and there is nothing but might makes right.

...Which is exactly what you see if you look around. If you don't recognize this, you risk collapsing the entire (highly artificial and arbitrary) structure of rights.

Data wasn't being cruel, merely honest.

There usually isn't a difference. Although in this case, Data has no basis for being honest, as he doesn't possess the necessary facts. When he makes a baseless claim without pointing out the lack of basis, he may be many things, but honest is not one of them.

Timo, do you really see Data as a cruel or dishonest person?

Not exclusively or predominantly, no. Just on occasion. Just like any of us.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ModusOperandi]

Data wasn't being cruel, merely honest.

There usually isn't a difference. Although in this case, Data has no basis for being honest, as he doesn't possess the necessary facts.

There's a big difference. You can be honest without being cruel (it's called tact.) Data wasn't cruel here. Given the magnitude of Marr's decision, Data's response was carefully modulated. And he did possess the facts, insomuch as anyone could know the mind of a long-dead boy, via his detailed logs.

Cruelty also implies intent to hurt. But Data is portrayed as innocently trying to help Marr understand how her son would have felt:

Data, incapable of fathoming her psychotic break, can
only respond on a literal level.

DATA
I do not find such a file in your
son's journals. However... from
what I know of him by his writing
and his memories, I do not believe
he would be happy. He was proud
of your career as a scientist,
and now you have destroyed it.
You say you did it for him, but
he would not want that. Yes.
He would be very sad now.
(innocently hopeful)
Does that help, Doctor Marr?

Note how the script explicitly states that Data was innocently hopeful/helpful here -- and that's exact how Spiner played him, without a trace of cruelty. Note also that he begins his assessment by saying "I believe," acknowledging the rest to be his opinion based on the facts of the log entries. And that "I believe" clearly applies to the "He would be very sad now" statement as well.

Of course we can decide we have the ethical right to kill animals for food. But it then follows that we cannot logically have the ethical right to deny other lifeforms the killing of humans for food.

Really? Because there's no logical difference between killing human life and any other life? The Rwandan Genocide is ethically equivalent to crop-dusting a corn field? (I was going to say the Holocaust but I wanted to avoid Godwin's Law ) Obviously you have to draw the line somewhere, otherwise murder is ethical. Oh, I forgot:

since might makes right

Well, there we have it. Ethical is whatever the strongest person says it is.

The best episodes of Star Trek, like this one, revolve around finding ethical high ground in difficult situations. Star Trek is about ideas and ideals. Might makes right is about as far from Trek philosophy as you can get.

Timo, I get the feeling you don't really believe some of the positions you take, you just enjoy the mental gymnastics in trying to justify them. I'm not calling you a troll per se, just a very frustrating person to discuss Star Trek with :P

 

[Timo]

Well, I'm dead serious about there being no logical difference between the various types of killing, except of course in the graduated sense. That is, some things may be more valuable than others in universally agreeable terms, but humans don't stand apart as a category of their own in any way there. They are just a point on a scale.

In a human-centric system, humans of course assign themselves special value. But that's just basic selfishness and nothing more. Tellingly, no human culture has ever categorically condemned murder of fellow humans: there's always a caveat or a dozen where murder is allowed, encouraged or even absolutely required.

The thing about Star Trek is that it might rise above such petty selfishness. For one thing, there's extensive diversity there to cast doubt on monomaniacal, ill thought out convictions arising from a homogeneous environment such as everyday Earth. For another, humans aren't at the very top of the food chain (especially in "Silicon Avatar"!) so they aren't automatically in the position to dictate ethics out of their asses. And Picard is a leading character blessed with some humility, whereas Data is an outsider character capable of questioning.

Note how the script explicitly states that Data was innocently hopeful/helpful here -- and that's exact how Spiner played him, without a trace of cruelty.

Just goes to show how sadistically manipulative Data can be when fully applying himself.

Really, "honesty" of that sort is one of the crimes that should carry a death penalty without the unnecessary complication of a court of justice.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mojochi]

Data wasn't being cruel, merely honest.

There usually isn't a difference. Although in this case, Data has no basis for being honest, as he doesn't possess the necessary facts.

There's a big difference. You can be honest without being cruel (it's called tact.) Data wasn't cruel here. Given the magnitude of Marr's decision, Data's response was carefully modulated. And he did possess the facts, insomuch as anyone could know the mind of a long-dead boy, via his detailed logs.

Cruelty also implies intent to hurt. But Data is portrayed as innocently trying to help Marr understand how her son would have felt:


Note how the script explicitly states that Data was innocently hopeful/helpful here -- and that's exact how Spiner played him, without a trace of cruelty. Note also that he begins his assessment by saying "I believe," acknowledging the rest to be his opinion based on the facts of the log entries. And that "I believe" clearly applies to the "He would be very sad now" statement as well.

Right. The whole point of the exchange was that she already needed to be in a straight jacket, & all Data did was witlessly enlighten her to the fact. She went all nutty & started asking her son to tell her that he understood her actions

Data gave the best response he could to that request. He had no basis for telling her that her kid would have understood & approved of what his mother had done. All his info was to the contrary & he actually thought that by telling her what he did know, that he was helping her. He had no insight as to how it would really effect her, just as he had no insight as to how the "Good News" he gave O'Brien about the wedding cancellation would be taken. He was simply trying to reconcile his data with her request, in an attempt to help her, & imho, that dose of straight truth would in fact help her eventually, because she's deluding herself

I had no problem with the episode except for Data of all people trying to put words in the mouth of Dr. Marr's dead son. Data...who has such a piss poor grasp on humanity feels himself qualified to interpret emotions from a kid he never met based off of a journal. Not to mention his timing with that little diatribe. There is no way Dr. Marr didn't end up in a straight jacket at the end of this episode right?

Let's also get a complete view of what Data actually knows here. He has the colonists' logs, as well as their thoughts, memories & experiences downloaded to him, likely via some developmental stage of Soong's synaptic scanning technique, that he'd eventually use to recreate Julianna Soong. Data truly knows those people, infinitely better than the Enterprise computer knew Leah Brahms, when it made a pretty close approximation of her. Data likely could have taken Dr. Marr to the holodeck & transferred all of what he had on file, & literally created a near duplicate of her son

In fact, I imagine someday she'll beg him for those files so she can possibly do exactly that, because you know... She's a cracked egg, & was on her way to being so, long before Data showed up. She is as compromised as Ben Maxwell, & has been so ever since the trauma