From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Fri Feb 15 2002 - 13:02:27 MST
walter.kehowski@gcmail.maricopa.edu wrote:
>
> One is reminded of the Tleilaxu axolotl tanks of Frank Herbert's Dune. These
> "tanks" were eventually revealed to be not tanks, however, but females
> ''almost immobile in their grossness" engineered to grow whatever embryos
> were deposited in them (such as the Duncan Idaho gholas ad infinitum). The
> technological womb seems to be the more ethical path, at least, but there's
> still plenty of room for abuse.
Abuse? Abuse how? I suggest you read Lois McMaster Bujold's "Barrayar"
novels and see what Cordelia Naismith had to say to those foolish primitive
Barrayans about the massive barbarism and unsafety of forcing women to bear
children inside their own body. I think the vulnerability of the child to
ingested toxins, the possibility of maternal accidents, the inegalitarian
ungainliness of the female during pregnancy, and of course the horrific pain
of "natural" childbirth, were some of the major problems on Cordelia's mind.
-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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