From: Avatar Polymorph (avatarpolymorph@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Nov 28 2002 - 02:35:45 MST
Mike Lorry writes of my comments on immortalism and the death penalty:
"Someone who cares so little for their fellow man should not be
given an infinite length of time to continue perpetrating crimes or else
living forever in isolation from humanity (at my expense). When you end
anothers life, you surrender your right to your own.
The only proven prevention is to allow private, law abiding citizens to
be armed.
That you are unconcerned with punishment is evident."
I note that in the world of assembler technology "your expense" has a
different meaning.
I disagree with you. You have no right to end the life of an errant child
that I love. Civilization sponsors empathy culturally. The great writings of
empathetic morality have occured under conditions of empathy. Our modern
civilization is the first in history aside from some Buddhist kingdoms in
India and Japan to ban the death penalty, and we (Europe and the
Anglo-Celtic diaspora outside of the US) have done it en masse. Thus if
anyone tells you there is nothing new in moral history, you can reply that
the end of the death penalty is something new, just as was the end of
slavery. And make no mistake, future history will regard the death penalty
as a moral negative equivalent to slavery.
I disagree with you weapons but you are right I am against punishment and in
favour of protective shielding. Under my moral principles, assembler tech
should sponsor protective but not offensive principles for example.
As I have argued a few times, those extropians in favour of the death
penalty are not addressing the issue of immortalism sufficiently. Execution
currently is the premature ending of a mortal life: executing an immortal is
the absolute ending of an indefinite life, is it not?
As an additional point, guns or offensive weapons are NOT sufficient
protection for an immortal, however much you argue this is the "only
defence" against murder. As beings-trembling-on-the-edge-of-losing
mortality, pending immortals, we must come up with relatively FAILSAFE
systems, layered ones, to provide ourselves with protection. These systems
must work (after fine tuning) for billions of years. Such coding on a
physical level flows from cultural and ethical parameters. Such protection
must include protection against those who are indifferent to death without
involving forcibly twisting their minds (psychosurgery, whether genetic or
nanotech). Perhaps a difficult thing, initially. I suspect these sort of
issues will drive culture far more strongly than environmental divergencies
have driven Stage I evolution (Darwinian natural selection through random
mutation) [we are now entering Stage II evolution, self-directed evolution].
Towards Ascension
Avatar Polymorph
PS I a gun-owning extropian and a gun-owning attacker AGREE to fight it out,
I have no objection to them doing so, though personally I think it is
negative and not my personal cup of tea.
_________________________________________________________________
Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jan 15 2003 - 17:58:28 MST