From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Wed Apr 17 2002 - 12:33:56 MDT
On Wednesday, April 17, 2002, at 12:11 pm, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> Another test of morality is to ask "Who *would* you be willing to kill
> to guarrantee a transhuman future?" A luddite? What sort of luddites
> would be moral to kill, and what sorts would not be?
"Thou shalt not commit murder." Does this need to be an Extropian
Principle?
"What sort of luddites would be moral to kill?" Are you kidding? We
can't just kill people because they believe differently than us. We
can't just kill them because they lobby congress to outlaw cloning. We
can't just kill them because the turn public opinion against science and
set us back a whole generation. Our tools are free-speech, free-market,
logical debate, scientific method, and critical thinking. If our ideas
don't win with these methods, I don't see any reason they should win at
all.
If we replace free-thought and debate with murder and violence, we cease
being Extropian and become the worst sort of Extremist Religious
Terrorists who simply want to kill off nonbelievers. How is this any
different than the various terrorist groups we oppose now? Instead of
defeating them, we would be joining them.
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