[b]Steel Liberators[/b] From Eclipse Phase Jump to: navigation, search (From Sunward p. 84) [i]"Prejudice against synthmorphs is higher on Luna than on almost any other large and cosmopolitan world or habitat. Lunars assume that synthmorphs are more vulnerable to infection by TITAN viruses. The majority of Lunars also consider people who either prefer synthmorphs or are forced to sleeve in them due to poverty to be inherently lazy, unreliable, or more prone to violence and antisocial behavior. Many Lunars not only freely snub anyone sleeved in a synthmorph, they also find subtle ways to discriminate against them. Tensions between synthmorph pride advocates and young biochauvinist Lunars (Archetype)has escalated into violence. Some anti-synth bigots have taken to going into synthmorph living areas and attacking the residents."[/i] [i]"Over the past decade, however, there has also been a growing synthmorph pride movement on Luna. The largest group, known as the Steel Liberators, are gaining widespread popular support among the Lunar poor, but most other Lunars regard them as dangerous radicals. The Steel Liberators agitate to improve living and working conditions for the clanking masses and also encourage poor Lunars who have gained enough money to trade in their case morphs to choose a higher-end synthmorph rather than a splicer or basic pod. The leaders of the Steel Liberators are all sleeved in various high-end synthmorphs. This cause has recently been picked up by a popular Lunar synthmorph band called Chrome Freedom, whose songs are known for their radical lyrics and whose shows are exceedingly popular with both the clanking masses and with young and rebellious members of the Lunar middle and upper classes."[/i] [b]<> by; OTP[/b] In fact the argument over whether humanity should accept synthetic life or continue to pursue biological existence is deeper and more important than a simple lifestyle choice. On the broader social scale the individual's choice to live as a biological or synthetic is no more important than the choice of sexual orientation or vocation. However, taken as a species the choice has massive implications on how humanity will survive in and interact with the cosmos in the future. Biology is the default paradigm for human existence, but given the state of technology in 10 AF it needn't be. Humanity has a morphological choice to make, and that's the point that the Steel Liberators are trying to bring to light. For years synthmorph activists have made the "Canned Monkey" argument. It follows that; hominids can only survive in a vary narrow range of temperatures and atmospheric pressures, require an oxygenated atmosphere and liquid water, are not tolerant of high energy radiation and their energy paths from electromagnetic to the chemistry they require for fuel, (food) is very inefficient. Thus, for humans to live pretty much anywhere in space they must manufacture a complex habitat out of limited and, in some places, rare resources and they can never interact fully and naturally with their environment. They are essentially; Monkeys in a Can. Unfortunately this argument against biology gained a lot of traction after the Fall when humans lost the earth, their only native biosphere. Furthermore it is the right of every human to be physically instantiated. About five-hundred million human minds--roughly half of the surviving human population--are waiting for bodies. The biological paradigm is a major roadblock to meeting this demand. Creating a biological human morph is slow and expensive. At three years per body it will take centuries to clone a basic biomorph for every person who wants one but, in addition, each biomorph also carries the cost in time and energy of all of the delicate infrastructure needed to support it. So, they argue that, the industry of building space stations, habitats and terrafroming planets to support human life is based entirely on earth nostalgia. It's wasteful of time, energy, effort and inspiration. Synthetic life is simply more efficient. The biological Human paradigm must be left behind. NTS:[[[also need to work in the argument that biology seems to be a limiting factor in human intelligence. That synthetic minds have potential to be massivly parralel distributed networks and the process of inspiration could be multiplexed, not hive mind: Hive Intelligence]]] to get a perspective on the flip side of this argument see: Biochauvinist

[b]The Rules of Bigotry: Kinesics[/b] (From EP Core p. 181; Kinesics) [i]"Kinesics to read body language, tells, social cues, and other subconscious indicators. It can also be used to emote more effectively. Kinesics is used defensively whenever someone is trying to deceive you; make an Opposed Test against that person’s Deception or Impersonation skill."[/i] [i]"Though synthetic morphs are also designed to emote, reading them is not as easy. [b]Apply a –30 modifier when judging a synthetic morph inhabited by a character or AGI.[/b] Likewise, standard AIs are also difficult to read; apply a –60 modifier when judging a synthetic morph or pod operated by an AI."[/i] Given that ninety percent of humanoid communication is non-verbal, this negative modifier for Kinesics tests vs. synthmorphs highlights a strong and rational reason for distrust of the synthmorph community. Human minds are programed to read facial expression and body language from birth and in fact this ability may be actually hardwired in to human brains by evolutionary processes as a survival trait. Certainly there's a strong argument to be made that the ability to judge intentions was precursor to the development of spoken language. This handycap in the ability of even anthropomorphic synthetic people to emote combined with the inability of a human mind to 'read' the body of a synthmorph and the apathy resultant from long cultural experience with autonomous machines forms a trifecta for poor relations between communities. This basic inability to relate is further exacerbated by the common and, all too rational fear, left by the damage TITAN machines did to human civilization and quality of life. NTS:[[Human minds sleeved in synthmorphs will have the same problem no wonder that that most people sleeved in synths will go to great lengths to aquire a biomorph; They can't even understand or connect with eachother.]] NTS: other arguements; [["We must be vigelant maintaining the rational of our attitudes and behavior."]] [[we can't be certain that Long Term/Biological/Darwinian Evolution, the random response to environment is unimportant.]] [[As human intelect becomes more machine do we become more or less suseptable when we face titans again?]] [[as human intelligence transitoions from bio to machine do we also face the risk of becoming the titans ourselves? is there no philosophical meat to the argument that we loose as soon as we're no longer human?]] [[are Cognite simulspace creches really the way we want to introduce new minds to the universe?]] [[how do we make new minds, truely novel individuals, without begining with biology?]]