From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Thu Apr 18 2002 - 06:54:35 MDT
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> On Wednesday, April 17, 2002, at 12:11 pm, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> > Another test of morality is to ask "Who *would* you be willing to kill
> > to guarrantee a transhuman future?" A luddite? What sort of luddites
> > would be moral to kill, and what sorts would not be?
>
> "Thou shalt not commit murder." Does this need to be an Extropian
> Principle?
There is murder and then there is homicide. For an atheist, Harvey, you
seem to be rather quick to quote scripture.
>
> "What sort of luddites would be moral to kill?" Are you kidding? We
> can't just kill people because they believe differently than us. We
> can't just kill them because they lobby congress to outlaw cloning. We
> can't just kill them because the turn public opinion against science and
> set us back a whole generation. Our tools are free-speech, free-market,
> logical debate, scientific method, and critical thinking. If our ideas
> don't win with these methods, I don't see any reason they should win at
> all.
>
> If we replace free-thought and debate with murder and violence, we cease
> being Extropian and become the worst sort of Extremist Religious
> Terrorists who simply want to kill off nonbelievers. How is this any
> different than the various terrorist groups we oppose now? Instead of
> defeating them, we would be joining them.
Your position is its own sort of extremism, one that refuses to take
responsibility for the consequences.
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