Re: Nanotech control systems (was Re: Transhuman Beach Party)

From: Bryan Moss (bryan.moss@dial.pipex.com)
Date: Fri Sep 10 1999 - 16:37:50 MDT


J. R. Molloy wrote:

> > As funny as this sounds, why is it any different from 'curing'
> > homosexuality or skin colour?
>
> The difference lies in superficial variables. An identical principle
> applies: The principle of emotional inertia.
>
> [...] unenlightened brains fear that they would lose the familiar comfort
> of their habitual thinking if they enter choiceless awareness.

I'm thinking more in terms of children. A healthy mother wants a healthy
child, a deaf mother wants a deaf child. For an authority to decide what
should be allowed and what should not be allowed it has to have some idea of
what is normal. I'm just as inclined to agree with an authority that thinks
homosexuality isn't normal as I am to agree with an authority that thinks
blindness isn't normal. Personally I subscribe to the view that I should be
able to grow children anyway I want, by any means I want, and do with them
as I please. My answer to the ethical implications of new technology is to
forget the ethics and concentrate on the science. Science cannot make us
anything less than we already are, it can only shatter false illusions.

BM



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