From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Wed Sep 11 2002 - 09:41:15 MDT
Simon Smith wrote:
> This is great as is, but how about including something even more
> proactive, supporting the *importance* of difference and variety, such
> as: "In addition, the Extropy Institute believes that diversity is
> desirable and leads to increased diversity of thought, which is
> essential for exploring new avenues of self-creation and
> self-transformation."
>
> If every Transhumanist were of the exact same "race," gender, age, body
> type and religion, and had the exact same sexual preferences and
> upbringing, we wouldn't have a very dynamic movement.
I object to this proposed amendment as I'm not sure that difference, for
the sake of difference, is always rational. There are rare occassions
when does happen to be rational. But usually "difference for the sake of
difference", without attention to whether it's a good difference or a bad
difference, is the aimless product of aimless rebellion.
And likewise from the perspective of combating racism, I believe there is
no value to either racial diversity *or* racial unity; in the face of the
future race is simply irrelevant. To attempt to value "diversity" is to
abandon colorblindness.
If every transhumanist were of the exact same race and body type, I don't
see how it would make the slightest difference one way or the other. How
does this supervene on cognition?
-- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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