From: Waldemar Ingdahl (wingdahl@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Jul 07 2000 - 14:30:10 MDT
>From: QueeneMUSE@aol.com
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.com
>To: extropians@extropy.com
>Subject: Re: italian interest
>Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000 14:41:36 EDT
>
>In a message dated 7/7/2000 10:34:17 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
>wingdahl@hotmail.com writes:
>
> > Kind of reminds me of a truck I saw in the US with two stickers on it.
>The
> > first one said "member of the NRA", the second said "support Clinton/
>Gore".
> >
> > Unfortunately it could also be an illustration of the same
>philosophical
> > errors that some transhumans commit.
> >
>
>I like that guy!! That's NOT neccesarily an error, it simply is
>contradictory. He absolutely correct in his own convictions. Perhaps he is
>avidly against religion in the school - but likes the economy since the
>democrats are in power - and maybe he even supports socialized medicine -
>while still being a staunch believer in right to bear arms! Hey, maybe he's
>my uncle... an American Indian, he wants to keep his land rights AND his
>guns!
It was not about American politics at all. Instead it was a much deeper
discussion to which the sticker example was a quite small illustration.
> "The capacity to tolerate complexity and welcome contradiction,
>not
>the need for simplicity and certainty, is the attribute of an explorer"
> --Heinz R. Pagels, Perfect Symmetry
>
>Personally, I applaud people who have their OWN opinions on individual
>issues.
So, is it OK to say that nanotechnology should allowed but computers are
evil and must be banned? Isn't that weaking your own philosophical basis?
You have admitted to different principles, and soon you will get into
conflict.
Well, this discussion isn't what I had in mind but your mail inspired me,
so...
Having the "individual opinions" is very common for people that haven't
really thought their opinions through. And really why should they? Politics
(one of the few areas they remotedly most are in contact with) is today a
smorgasboard where politicians offer goodies if you vote for them "vote for
me I will double your welfare check while reducing your taxes".
But transhumanism isn't a smorgasboard. If your starting to introduce
inconsitencies it will very quickly be weakened by the conflicts so
introduced.
>IT is perfectly OK to blatantly disagree with your party's platforms on
>some
>issues. I think it more productive, since the party will listen more to
>it's
>own -- than to a bunch of non-thinking party liners who are destructive.
I was not talking about party politics, that is a different case, that
requires a deeper analysis. I was talking about how philosophical principles
are strong or weak.
>Most of the Bush supporters also think prayer in the schools should be
>restored too, Will you accuse someone of the same crap if they had a Bush
>sticker and an atheist one?
>Surely you must.
"LONG LIVE THE OPEN DYNAMIST SOCIETY!"
beneath the sticker:
"BILL JOY FOR PRESIDENT"
Do you notice the inconcistency?
The man with the truck (to use that example again, with its fallancies)
didn't really see that his vote for those politicians was against what he
advocated in his first sticker. That's the problem with the smorgasboard
approach, you will get inconsistencies, and you're either forced to drop
your views in the long run, or to change your views.
The question is really about philosophical principles, can one advocate
transhumanism while sharing stasist views upon society? I think it will be
really hard, since you often find yourself in the dilemma of being either
impractical or immoral. Those discrepances are dangerous.
Ingdahl
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