From: Brian Phillips (deepbluehalo@earthlink.net)
Date: Wed Jun 26 2002 - 15:11:39 MDT
It appears as if "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience@pobox.com>
wrote
<<Let's cut to the chase. Would you rather that the US invade all countries
with squalid dictatorships in an attempt to impose order? Or would you
prefer to maintain international stability before the Singularity and hope
that not too many people die? Both options are morally uncomfortable, and
I'm starting to get fed up with people's inability to confront uncomfortable
choices, so I cynically predict that most people on this list will advocate
some halfhearted ineffective technological solution which couldn't be
implemented for another ten years as a surrogate for confronting either of
these two options directly. Incidentally, are any of you under the illusion
that by arguing about this, you are "doing something"?
- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence>>
Both options ARE morally deplorable if you are a functional
altruist.
I'll frankly admit I am not as ethically sophisticated as Eliezar,
but I see two big options.
Be selfish, or be altruist.
If we are selfish.. let Africa rot and eat the pieces in a few decades
when they are juicy bite-size morsels for the low-rescource scavengers
of our own socioeconomic system. (Doesn't THAT sound so very nice!).
If famine and war doesn't do the job short term, pestilence (HIV) will
do it long-term. No way anybody would subsidize enough anti-virals to
help there.
Or if we are altruist..then
We need to reintroduce the Anglosphere to Africa the hard way.
If that means that a relatively minor amount of political dissidents
go to the camps or the gallows(!) so Western-style farms and mines
and factories can feed Africa's children (ALL Africa's children) then
that's a few eggs. We might be able to keep the gloves on
provided we were determined to do whatever it takes to
save lives (i.e. offer cash prizes for sterilization ops, death penalties
for excessive disease transmission, financial incentives to inter-tribal
marriage and favouring of cross-tribal children in schools, making
traditional tribal languages extremely unpopular etc.). Ends justify
the means, white man's (and yellow man's) burden Act. 2. Etc.
Doesn't sound very appetizing either does it? But frankly I don't see
how we can make much of an impact on Africa's suffering without
truly draconian intervention. Dragging Africa into the Anglo/Russki
brawl we call the Cold War was realpolitik, and we shouldn't
pretend it was anything but selfish whites being selfish whites.
Frankly I don't give a fig about the morality involved (I'm not
a moral philosopher like Eliezar) so I restrict my crusading to
making loads of cash and don't allow futile ethical ponderings to
disturb my sleep habits or motivate me to play daddy to a whole
continent. I'm sure we all have enough problems on our desks
to keep us busy without a reprise to the Empire the Sun Never
Sets On.
regards,
Brian (Phillips)
(who is in no way associated with Brian Atkins, Brian Williams,
E. Yudkowsky or Sing Int for AI)
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