Page 74 - Demo

p. 45 s. 90) This is where you and I differ. I could not inflict harm on another because I realised what I was universalising to do good for the few. You did not understand your actions, so caught up in utilitarianism you missed the humanity for the people.”
“The founders? That’s who you despise?”
“They found coercion necessary to build what they believed would create an immutable reign of justice. Of happiness. Of good. But, like Bellerophontes they assumed themselves gods, guardians of justice, and forgot their own humanity. It rendered them incapable of creating a system that could be humane.” he spat. He did something to the throttle, the boiling surface of Deneb began to hurtle by as we gained speed, orbiting ever closer.
He continued “Are you aware of the Pauli Exclusion Principle?” I shook my head. “When you compress matter, past a certain point, electrons are forced into the same space. But that can’t happen, you see. So the electrons leave their atoms and become a fluid, they degenerate.”
“And this is relevant how?”
“You see, when they tried to find out how big a neutron star could be before it collapsed, they forgot that degenerate matter itself generated outward force. They had to rerun the TolmanOppenheimer-Volkoff limit.” he turned to me, I returned my best deadpan glare.
“Oppression works much the same way. You can press, and press, and press, and eventually the thing will collapse. But how brutal, how coercive can you get, before that point? Sometimes, the people’s own response to oppression justifies further oppression. Do you remember the Eugenics Wars?”
I frowned. “Why?”
“Because they’re important, that’s why. Bred into separate classes to do separate jobs, and then corporate leadership was amazed when they revolted. The intellectuals who took over, the founders, don’t you think they had the same fears?”
“No, because they attempted to create justice, not kill it.”