[TLEILAXU]

It looks more like socialism to me!

While presenting you with means to support yourself, socialistic governmental systems (right now we mostly have Northern Europe to speak for those) do not, by themselves, impose any kind of morals on their citizens. Morals reside in the realm of historical and cultural inheritance. So socialism neither punishes nor promotes self-indulgence.

My point wasn't that socialism promotes self-indulgent behavior, but rather that the society of the Progenitor's must've been in some sense socialistic since the obstruction of others and their desires is forbidden, which I interpret to mean that they are in a sense all equal citizens, which people aren't in capitalistic societies.

Another question is, are hedonism and sociopathy really inevitable?

Probably, but hedonism might not be hedonism to the hedonist, only from our perspective. Hell, you argue a man undergoing hormone therapy and surgery to look like a woman isn't far off from "regrafting themselves to plunge ever deeper perversions".

I feel like this analogy is a severe oversimplification. I also have said nothing of the sort.

Lol my bad, I meant to say "you COULD argue", let me fix it.

[SmilerLoki]

My point wasn't that socialism promotes self-indulgent behavior, but rather that the society of the Progenitor's must've been in some sense socialistic since the obstruction of others and their desires is forbidden, which I interpret to mean that they are in a sense all equal citizens, which people aren't in capitalistic societies.

Off the top of my head, such a society can be an anarchy. I can also imagine its origins capitalistic or socialistic/communistic. The line is tremendously blurry when resources are abundant (at least, I imagine it to be so). Also, if memory serves, current capitalistic societies declare that all people are equal in their rights. Those declarations might not be upheld in reality, but such a situation is then generally considered illegal.

To accentuate my position I should add that I see no problem in capitalism, socialism, or communism as long as society that identifies itself with a given paradigm functions. I also don't really have a preference, since all current legal and governmental systems have traits of all of those paradigms, and more. Of course, none are also perfect. People in power are generally more equal than others, everywhere.

Lol my bad, I meant to say "you COULD argue", let me fix it.

Oh, got it. No problem!

[Duskweaver]

My point wasn't that socialism promotes self-indulgent behavior, but rather that the society of the Progenitor's must've been in some sense socialistic since the obstruction of others and their desires is forbidden, which I interpret to mean that they are in a sense all equal citizens, which people aren't in capitalistic societies.

I think you're completely off-base here. A system where the only thing forbidden is obstructing the desires of others sounds more like Objectivism (or, I guess, LaVeyan Satanism) than anything else.

[The Sharmat]

I didn't take that to be a legal absolute anyway, so much as an open acknowledgement that the only thing stopping anyone from getting what they wanted was the power of others. The progenitors didn't sound like they had any kind of objective morality. Which was unfortunate for them since the universe apparently does.

But otherwise yeah I agree with Dusk.

[TLEILAXU]

Okay. The image I had in my head when reading those passages was of a post-scarcity socialist "utopia" except everybody is an immoral pervert, not of laissez faire capitalism, but I get your point.

[The Sharmat]

If they were truly post scarcity socialism and capitalism cease to have meaning, I'd have thought? I mean a huge part of how they're defined is methods for dealing with distribution of scarce resources. Although I don't think they're post scarcity.