Avatar (James Cameron film)

Again again again, there already was a mine that they were getting unobtanium from. Again again again, the situation clearly wasn't so dire that they Flash, we only have fifteen hours to save the world.

Saving their own species from their own fuckups does not give them the right to screw over another species.

You act like there aren't alternatives but there are.

As above, so below. If your country shit its bed would that make it okay to shit on another country to fix your own shit?

Manifest Destiny: IN SPACE!!!

One of the many reasons why I don't even like the idea of this film.

Those miners would be guarded by Scorpions. Initially I also suggested that the mountains would be tugged away from the area first so that their magnetic field would be smaller and any flying animals on them would be scared off by the "earthquake".

That is also extremely dangerous, and if the overmind catches you placing bombs on the mountain, you'd be dragon snacks before you can say "Hallelujah"

So what are you saying, just let the people on Earth die? Even the ones who had nothing to do with the Earth dying? If they were going for the lode under the tree, then clearly there wasn't enough of the rocks in the pit anymore. And given the whole "12 year round trip" from Earth to Pandora, I'm inclined to say, yes, speed is of the essence in gathering the rocks, and the tree was the fastest, most abundant, and safest source around.

Earth isn't going to blow up.

Its a polluted, crime-ridden shithole where people die everyday.

But our own earth has pollution and has crime and people die everyday.

You have no proof that Earth would die or be irretrievably fucked if they didn't get that motherload from the tree. And to pull a you, that proof doesn't exist in the movie and therefore has no bearing on this argument.

The mining efforts were run by a corporation. Their desire for the mothertreeload was fueled by the desire for profit. They are not providing this material to save the world. They are making A LOT of money off of it.

And even if it were as urgent as you're saying, that still doesn't give them the right to displace the navi. The mountains can be mined. It will be dangerous but you know what? Mining is always dangerous. And humans shit their own bed. They can take on extra risk of fixing it.

edited 18th Nov '14 1:02:52 PM by Bocaj

Is it so wrong to do both?

So how would you propose the Earth be saved, then?

edited 18th Nov '14 1:07:11 PM by maxwellelvis

Its not wrong to make money saving the world.

It is wrong putting profit over people's lives.

Can Earth even be saved? Nothing about unobtanium suggests that it will clean up the planet. Its used as a superconductor in spaceships which lets interstellar travel happen. But its not like they're going 'abandon planet.'

Unless there's other things going on, unobtanium is a band-aid brand adhesive medical strip.

edited 18th Nov '14 1:10:47 PM by Bocaj

At that point the RDA neither knows nor cares about the overmind. For all they knew, the Banshees are just ordinary mortal animals. Would they be doomed if Eywa got ticked by the mountain mining and ordered a Zerg Rush on them? Or course they would. But they don't even know that's a possibility for the entire flock to attack in a coordinated, hive-minded group. And we don't even know what triggers Eywa. She certainly took her sweet time rescuing the Na'vi in the final battle.

edited 18th Nov '14 1:15:03 PM by Tuckerscreator

They took every precaution to protect their employee's lives on that moon.

What are you trying to say, Bocaj, that there's no hope? What do you propose the people on Earth do then, Mr. Big Shot?

If they get mobbed by dragons if they so much as nudge a mountain out of place, they'd figure out there's an intelligence pretty quick.

I suggest that they don't turn people out of their homes so they can go digging where people live. That's what I suggest.

Exactly. What I'm saying is that it's the better option in theory, with the available information they have pre-dig. In practice the better option would have been continuing negotiations, but this is assuming both sides actually wanting peace and not intending to screw each other over, which sadly is not the case.

So we billions of humans all die so that one tribe can sit on a super-fuel they're never going to use?

edited 18th Nov '14 1:31:12 PM by Tuckerscreator

There were other sources of unobtanium that the navi weren't living on top of.

There really weren't. We just explained that.

No you didn't.

I agree with Bocaj that the humans were never in danger of extinction. We needed the unobtainium to support our destructive way of life, not because we will die out without it. It's not a war for survival between the two species, it's a contest of the Na'vi's entire culture and way of life versus our desire to have more spaceships and plasma TVs.

The reason it's going to suck to be the Na'vi in a few years is because our spaceships and plasma TVs are way more important to us than the livelihoods of a bunch of savage cat-people who murdered our sons and daughters for no good reason^HEY! The version of the story that people back home are going to hear is the version that the people leaving the planet at the end of the film tell them, and ultimately we're the ones who get to decide whether or not we carpetbomb them into oblivion and take the Unobtainium, not them.

That's why I keep saying the morality of the issue doesn't matter a whole lot: the conflict between the humans and the Na'vi is going to be decided based on propaganda and who has the biggest guns, instead of who is Right. Sometimes, having the moral high ground just makes it easier for the sniper to line up his shot.

edited 18th Nov '14 2:15:57 PM by TobiasDrake

Hah, maybe they shouldn't have let all the sympathizers stay on planet. Someone really should have gone back to earth to oppose the party line.

You done goofed, Jake Sully.

The reason it's going to suck to be the Na'vi in a few years is because our spaceships and plasma T Vs are way more important to us than the livelihoods of a bunch of savage cat-people who murdered our sons and daughters for no good reasonHEY!

Please do not include me in this "us". I do not deserve this honor.

x6.

Avatar takes place in 2154. The first warnings on the dangers of pollution were, let's say, in the eighties. So for 170 years humanity knew about global warming and the dangers of overconsuming and was not able to change that. I would say that, yes, humans deserve to die if they are dumb enough to keep going despite all the obvious happening right in front of their eyes for that long.

edited 18th Nov '14 2:56:31 PM by Julep

Every single one? The actions of a cruel business corporation shouldn't be punished on the ordinary citizens who had the misfortune to be born in this wasteland. Most everyone under 20 or so probably had no hand in Earth's environmental collapse, unless they somehow managed to call off all conservation efforts and pollute the whole planet in under two decades.

edited 18th Nov '14 3:04:07 PM by Tuckerscreator

I get the feeling there are two different arguments going on here. Bocaj is saying the humans shouldn't wipe out the Navi or force them out of their homes because it's wrong. Tobias is arguing that the Navi have to learn to adjust and accept their new neighbors/overlords because whether it's right or wrong don't matter because they've already gone ahead and started wiping out or moving the Navi and no appeal to their inner good is going to stop them.

And part of this is entangled on how badly Earth needs the resources the Navi are sitting on, but if I'm reading these past few pages right, the two arguments I've mentioned have decided that particular factor is not an issue.

edited 18th Nov '14 6:25:42 PM by Parable

We are talking about at least five successive human generations that let, one after another, those "giant corporations" waste the planet without doing anything. If five consecutive generations aren't enough to finally grow a conscience, what makes the sixth one different ? Yeah of course, it has not had the chance to fail yet.

But I'd say that Na'vi kids at least will grow up keeping their home planet in balance. I'd bet on them more than I would bet on the 2140's Earth kids.

There have been many civilizations that kept up practices like slavery or infanticide or massacre for centuries before enough people there realized this was wrong. Five generations is comparatively short, and it was probably even shorter considering environmental damage would show its effects earlier. I believe the backstory even mentions efforts to fix the planet, like cloning whales and such. All those people actually trying to undo the damage are going be just as screwed by the Navi's embargo.

It's a lot easier to know how to keep your home planet in balance when the planet sics its wildlife on you if you treat it bad. Humans do not have that "benefit". We have to figure out what's wrong the hard way.

edited 18th Nov '14 7:24:38 PM by Tuckerscreator

And this is what I was getting at. No matter what a guy like Sully says, there are and always will be good people on Earth, people who are trying to heal the damage we've done. And children who've done nothing wrong but be born into consumerist societies. Do they all deserve to die slow, choking deaths as the last resources dwindle? That's what Jake decided when he banished humans from Pandora, he took the lives of billions of people and doomed them all. Some hero.

It doesn't justify strip mining the home of another people. Once the crap under the tree had been mined out, what then? They would have moved on to blowing up another Na'vi tribe and then another and another and another and they would have strip mined the planet to nothing? What then?

The humans of Earth will have to look closer to home for uninhabited piles of resources. The unobtanium is unobtainumable perhaps but remember that humans got to Pandora without it in the first place. Its difficult, not impossible.

If Earth can't be salvaged, a new planet will have to be settled or terraformed.

But that's what needs to be focused on. Even with the unobtainum, we don't get any sign that any of the underlying problems were being addressed.

Perhaps humans will kill each other in wars and pollution and then pull itself together and a drunkard will create a warp drive and then meet the Vulcans.

edited 18th Nov '14 9:00:36 PM by Bocaj

By then they'd probably have enough of the rock that colonization and travel are much easier, and other planets with less hostile environments would be our new homes.

It's well past First Contact Day, I think.

And how are they supposed to get anywhere? It takes six years to get to Pandora, and it's as close as Alpha Centauri. They'll never reach another inhabitable planet with the current technology. Without the rock, they're not going anywhere.

edited 18th Nov '14 9:56:36 PM by maxwellelvis

As you pointed out, with the rock they're not getting anywhere fast either.