Essentially, in saying that we need to "focus on" the Machines, you're attempting to validate man-machine conflict, when, really, there never should have been one. And if conflict among men is the natural order of things, then we are only delaying the inevitable with conflict between men and machines, are we not? Mankind lived as a single sentient race for many, many years on the planet Earth before the advent of AI. Simply because the landscape has changed does not mean that we could not do it again. Wheat has been grown in the past, before the Machines destroyed it - crops could be raised, it is possible that we could find similar sources of DNA and clone livestock and other necessary resources.

At the simplest level, mankind's existence would be benefitted by the absence of the Machine tyranny.

Certainly there was war among men before AI. But we continued to live until AI destroyed us. In millions of years, man failed to eviscerate its own. In the scope of perhaps a century or two, man's creation terminated man. History is on my side when I say that we would be safer without the machines. As you said, conflict is the natural order. Extinction, however, is not. 

The sheer perseverence of Zion through the years of the destructive oppression of the Machines would seem a gleaming example to me of not only Zion's determination to survive, but our capability to survive in the most extreme of circumstances. You cannot deny that we have lived as rats backed into a corner every time the city was rebuilt and antagonized. We have lived without priveledge for centuries over and over. Without the machines, we could claim what we wished. Truly, we have survived. Truly we are surviving. Without the machines, we could move on from survival to life.

As I said before, grain, livestock, industry, expansion, education, science, and more - these are all things we could bring about without the machines looming over us threatening destruction around every bend. How long would mankind survive without the machines?

An eternity.

Mankind has never had to live on so little in their history, Mankind has never had to build up from the ashes of devistation as big as it would have to do if just New Zion survives. Survival is not living and I put it to you that Zion, without unification, will fail to live. You know how to survive but living is completely different. You talk of DNA, where will you find it after all this time? You talk of crops, where would they grow, you have no idea, apart from perhaps small areas, if the soil isn't still contaminated from the war. You are surviving because of your focus on the Machines, everyone is fighting a common foe but take that away and suddenly you get back all of the problems that society had before the war. Aquisition of wealth, conflict, disease, poverty, crime, high birth rates. With the little you have, without a unified spirit, Zion would not be able to continue like that.

Certainly Mankind would have been better off without AI ever having been invented but it was, because of Mankinds ignorance. Almost your entire industry and sciences have been worked on from the point of war with the Machines, is there anyone left who can teach and know about Industry and expansion, education and science from a non-war standpoint? Those who do know about them and can teach are living in the pods, those who will undoubtedly not survive if the Machines get destroyed.

The Machines didn't wipe out humanity as Neoteny claims.  If they had, we wouldn't be here. 

As for growing enough food to feed all of humanity, cloning livestock, wiping out the Machines, and all that other pie in the sky stuff...anyone who believes it's possible to do that, and to just pick up where we left off, is living in a bigger dream world than the Cypherites ever did. 

Illyria

The Machines didn't wipe out humanity as Neoteny claims.  If they had, we wouldn't be here. 

As for growing enough food to feed all of humanity, cloning livestock, wiping out the Machines, and all that other pie in the sky stuff...anyone who believes it's possible to do that, and to just pick up where we left off, is living in a bigger dream world than the Cypherites ever did.

Destruction begat creation. We were annihilated, and then, from our ashes, a juvenile phoenix was born from necessity, its wings clipped, its fire used to fuel the machines that both killed and bore it. Why do you think I say we're not the same humanity? That humanity was erradicated in a xenocide it begged for. This humanity had no part in that.

As for your second comment - are you not alive? Are you not fed? A man named Miller once found grain and harvested it. We still have stores of that grain. We could grow more, given the opportunity. It's not hard to believe we could locate the same facility or a similar one somewhere and harvest the other fruits of a destroyed nature. It's not hard to believe that there's a DNA bank out there in the ruins of a science facility or something. We have the technology. We even have some experience. But nevertheless, we are fed now - why would we not be fed in the future? These are luxuries and if you do not realize that, you haven't been eating enough gruel. There's food for plenty, but we could have better food, oh, we could have better food - if their tyranny were removed.

You call a strive for good food a pipe dream when it's something previously accomplished? Well, just look at the history of what you're supposedly doing.

We still have stores of that grain. We could grow more, given the opportunity. It's not hard to believe we could locate the same facility or a similar one somewhere and harvest the other fruits of a destroyed nature. It's not hard to believe that there's a DNA bank out there in the ruins of a science facility or something. We have the technology. We even have some experience.

How long ago was that grain farmed? How much? Are you currently growing more? If not, could you grow more? Your current stocks have a lmited lifespan. If grain is the only crop available then any uncontaminated ground will turn sour quite quickly due to lack of crop rotation. Finding un-damaged facilities out there is a thing of tiny possibility on the basis of hope and there is no evidence that you'll find any other source of crop of foodstuff out there.

I find it extremely hard to believe that there is an undisturbed facility out there with stocks of untainted DNA of livestock, that would have meant incredible forsight which is incredibly uncharacteristic of Humankind, they who burned their own sky because they thought it would stop the Machines... 

It also lies on the point that the Machines haven't destroyed or taken everything for their own research. I assume they have the run of the planet, or at least can travel further then anyone from Zion could travel in the inhospitable landscape.

Pass on these dreams, give the young Zions hope by all means, but remember it is their future you're gambling it upon.

Miller's grain can't feed all of humanity.  You can grow a little grain the way you've been doing it, but I sure don't see any cornfields in Zion.  You will need alot of power to generate the light that would be required for large-scale growing operations...so where will all that power come from?  Will you steal it from the Machines again?  Then the Matrix will still be required to produce that power. 

And saying we're not the same humanity as the ones in the original war makes no sense.  It's like saying we're not the same species as the people who colonized North America.

Illyria

I feel what needs to be said has been said, and, perhaps, overlooked.

There's plenty of porridge either way. But already having grain and having grown it before, and knowing that it came from a seed bank, I see no reason to believe that we couldn't grow it again, or why we couldn't find more seeds.

Call me optimistic, I guess I need to be about something.

For those in the dark, perhaps this reference might help.

And saying we're not the same humanity as the ones in the original war makes no sense.  It's like saying we're not the same species as the people who colonized North America.

You don't get it.

We're already in a "conflict;" more than that, we're in a war. We have no access to any such resources.

Maybe you don't understand this because you're on the other side and you've never had to worry about being killed by them in either the Real or the Matrix. But for us, it doesn't get any worse than it is right now.

I realize that without the Matrix, there is no purpose for Merovingian operatives and Cypherites. I realize that without the Machines, there is no purpose for Machinists, and no war for E Pluribus Neo to fight. Only the unified cause of humanity would remain. The cause of living the best life possible. The cause of making the best of the environment and founding a society. Would there be struggle? Sure. If there is not one struggle, there is another. I believe any struggle that might result from a human conflict would be on much lower scale than the battle we are locked into against our will right now. In any human conflict there is, at least, room for discussion.

I am not so fatalistic as you - that is, I do not believe in human nature, or any form of determinism when it comes to the thoughts or actions of man. Perhaps you have been a Machinist operative for too long, and have come to associate the behaviors of the machines, those that are formed through absolute logic, the result of thousands of subroutines compounding variables through mathematical equations coming to one, and only one possible outcome, with the behaviors of man.

I do not believe in "human nature" - it implies that we are without a choice in our behaviors, and that we have no responsibility for our actions. Truly, if you do believe in "human nature," you must concede that we could not help but create New Zion. It was the only course of action our "human nature" would allow.

But moreover, the presence of at least five clear subdivisions among human alignments in this war proves the impotence of "human nature" - after all, if human nature existed, we would all act as one hive mind on one side, and there would be no more than one human organization.

There is always a choice. At least, among humanity. We need only make it to the point where we may make that choice.

As you say "you will destroy yourselves," I say we will have the choice. As I say "they will destroy us," I know that this is an absolute.

I would rather have the option to die than have it forced upon me.

You cannot deny Human nature and that nature is conflict and domination. How many weapons has it made for the purposes of killing itself? What has stopped it? A handful of Humans who have argued for peace and, in the latter half of history, deterrents such as nuclear, chemical, biological and radiological weapons threatening to wipe out all of Humanity. Do you think that destroying the Machines will destroy Merovingian Operatives and Machinist Operatives?
We're all going to be after the same precious few resources, with few people and fewer resources, conflict is inevitable, struggles for power over the resources are highly likely. The only thing that keeps factions together is a common foe. What happens when that foe is brought to its knees? Internal power struggles and conflict until there are but a few survivors in which case the enemy is time and the limited gene pool.

Suggesting anything else is simply ignorant of Human nature, a nature which has shown no signs of change regardless of situation.

Perhaps you should try to explain why Roukan, it's far too easy to rubbish someone's point without explaining why.

I do not believe in "human nature" - it implies that we are without a choice in our behaviors, and that we have no responsibility for our actions. Truly, if you do believe in "human nature," you must concede that we could not help but create New Zion. It was the only course of action our "human nature" would allow.

But moreover, the presence of at least five clear subdivisions among human alignments in this war proves the impotence of "human nature" - after all, if human nature existed, we would all act as one hive mind on one side, and there would be no more than one human organization.

Let me try explaining what I meant by Illyria's sentences. Her first one was incorrect, because we are not the same humanity from the original war. We've seen different things, we eat differently. We know their mistakes, but our blind to see our own; most of us anyway. The second is just a stupid comparison. Knowledge compared to species? No *poop* we're the same species, but that doesn't mean we're the same people.