From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Mon Aug 30 1999 - 18:27:34 MDT
On Mon, 30 Aug 1999, Clint O'Dell wrote:
> I do see the point you are trying to make though. And I agree with who ever
> said that parents should be allowed to raise their children to believe what
> they like. After all, as adults they can change their programming. I did.
I would argue, that you may have a poor understanding of neuroscience.
I very much doubt that you have lost any of the programming that was
done to you as a child. You may have frosted over the cake or
buried the ideas away in the back of your mind, or logically
constructed a system more workable for you. But I would give
better than even odds that a blow to your head of sufficient
magnitude and you would forget all of that and you would be back
where you were before you constructed a new reality on top of
your old reality.
Anders may want to comment further on this. My basic position
is that connections formed in early childhood are very difficult
to rid yourself of.
Going back to the original post "parents should be allowed to raise
their children to believe what they like", has three problems --
(a) It inherently takes the position that children are property.
I see little distinction between parents abusing their children
physically or mentally (by teaching them fantasies that handicap
their survival skills). Its only a matter of degree.
(b) It is imposing a death sentence on almost all of those children.
We now face a time when *most* of the children entering
the world face the disctinct possibility of living forever.
However by granting their parents carte blanche to teach them
stuff that hurts their chances of survival, you significantly
diminish the chances that they will be able to "deprogram"
themselves in order to make informed choices about the path
they desire in the future. I put this roughly in the same
category as taking the baby and cutting off one of his arms
or legs so she/he may proceed through life significantly
disabled.
(c) By allowing parents to teach drivel, you end up with a huge
majority of children who believe drivel. When the grow
up as adults, they may vote or worse act in ways that could
quite possibly prevent you or I from surviving or achieving
the transhumanist future that awaits. People naturally do
not like change, they will react against it unless they
have the capacity for rational thought and informed debate.
Just because in a "libertarian" mindset, one wants to allow
others the freedoms you want for yourself, doesn't mean
*they* want to allow you those freedoms. Because you have
damaged their capacity for rational thought, *they don't
have to reciprocate*!
Think about it.
Robert
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