From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Mon Sep 17 2001 - 12:34:03 MDT
Carlos Gonzalia wrote:
>
> >From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@aeiveos.com>
>
> >From a rational position, *if* the case can be made that the
> >Afgani position & politics is likely to result in the diversion
> >of resources and delay the development of the technologies we anticipate
> >developing by more than 6 months, then a plan of genocide to
> >bury the country in rubble seems justified.
>
> I pressume you would next go for Iraq, then, since the costs of
> bombing Saddam repeatedly are adding to the delay. Then, Serbia I would
> expect, since all that peacekeeping is expensive as hell. Naturally
> you will go then through some African countries that currently take
> away too much money in food/health UN assistance. And the big debtor
> countries like mine, so you can be spared the tons of risky loans our
> economic reconstruction will take.
>
> Please clarify if you have any plans to try and make your case into public
> policy, or if this is just a theoretical exercise in cost reductions. I'd
> like to buy my survival gear and supplies in time, you know.
Look at it this way: Our primary goal, among others, is practical
immortality. Any activity which causes death is a crime against our
goals. Any action which delays the achievement of practical immortality
is a crime against our goals, because hundreds of thousands of people
will die of other causes during the period of delay.
What is the population of Afghanistan? Ten million? How much time does
it take for that many people in the world to die of other causes? 6
months? A year? If the actions of those responsible for terrorism delay
the achievement of immortality by enough time that the number of people
who die instead of becoming immortal exceeds that of those who stand in
its way, then from a PURELY rational, cost/benefit point of view,
Robert's statement is entirely justified, but only if such action
actually does result in saving that time.
I know that this is a rather disgusting thing to say. Life and death
decisions always are. I saw on tv last night an interview of a woman
seeking her brother-in-law in New York who was disgusted by going from
hospital to hospital, and getting lists not just of people, identified
and unidentified, but also lists of unidentified body parts and their
distinguishing characteristics. She says she will never look at a list
of names the same way again.
In positions of leadership, people always have to make life and death
decisions. Building the Golden Gate Bridge, for example, could have been
accomplished by a couple methods. We could have spent less money and
endured more accidental deaths by construction workers, or spent more
and had less deaths. The leaders have to decide how much a life is worth
in that context.
Similarly, take the arsenic in drinking water debate here in the US. The
national health organizations found that reducing the standard of
arsenic in drinking water from 50 ppm to 10 ppm would result in the
saving of 9 lives, at a cost of $75-150 million. The insurance industry
can tell you that the average human life today is worth about $6.5
million. By cost benefit analysis, it is unjustified to spend more than
that per life saved. Even if you spend $6.5 million per life saved, it
is a wash, you are just killing 9 DIFFERENT people than those who would
have died from arsenic poisoning. 9 people are gonna die one way or the
other. It is only when you spend less than the value of a life that you
are actually saving lives. In the case of arsenic, if you spend more
than $52 million to have more stringent standards, you are not doing any
net good in the world.
In the case of terrorism delaying immortality: if you kill fewer people
than are saved by the resultant acceleration of the achievement of
immortality, you are rationally justified. All that is left is a moral
debate over whether sins of commission are more wrong than sins of
omission.
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