From: altamira (altamira@ecpi.com)
Date: Wed Jun 21 2000 - 00:04:57 MDT
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-extropians@extropy.com
> [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.com]On Behalf Of hal@finney.org
>
> The real question is, as the paragraph above says, do these philosophical
> views, followed to their ultimate conclusion by someone with the courage
> of his convictions, lead to destructive ends? I think the answer is, yes,
> inevitably. Kaczynski's mail bombs, Joy's call for an end to progress,
> the violent activism of environmentalists and creationists alike, all
> are part of the same pattern. If modern technology is harmful, and if
> it seduces us onto a path to even greater and more powerful technologies
> which will produce greater harm, then the only way to force people off
> this path is by violence. Technology is too seductive, too attractive
> for persuasion to succeed. Inevitably force must be used.
There are in history some examples of civilizations which gave up major
technologies. I believe it was China, where gunpowder was invented, where
people gave up guns after having them for some time. I can think of a number
of less drastic examples, such as when the use of gold as money was outlawed
in the US (I'm defining technology maybe more broadly in this case than you,
but surely money should count as a technology).
Kaczynski certainly seems to want an end to all but the most primitive
technologies. I didn't get the impression from Joy's paper that he's
anywhere nearly so radical. I would think that an end to progress would be
easier to acheive without widespread violence than destroying existing
technology. If you outlaw certain kinds of research, you only have to exert
violence or the threat of violence against the small part of the population
that would have been engaged in the research. The outlawing of gold as money
involved force or threat of force against an entire population.
Bonnie
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