From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Fri Apr 19 2002 - 14:33:00 MDT
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?
None whatsoever because the future that I wish to see is a
future for everyone not just those you (or I for that matter)
might not consider "luddites".
>
> We are, after all, talking about the future of the human race, and if we
> don't establish a tranhuman future, then Planet Earth is doomed to a
> rather dismal malthusian extermination from disease, hunger, and lack of
> resources. If we don't build a tranhuman future, billions of people
> *WILL* die. No ifs, ands, or butts. This *WILL* happen if the Luddites
> win.
>
It is not for certain that a malthusian future is the only
alternative to transhumanism. I find it a bit strange and
strained that you would take roughly a Club of Rome position on
our future sans transhumanism.
If we start killing off all who aren't with the program on a
transhuman future in order to "guarantee" said future then
billions will certainly die. Many of the transhuman Singularity
scenarios have a high potential of billions dying or even the
entire non-uploaded human race. This is a problem.
> To analogize, if you KNEW in 1936 that the Holocaust was guaranteed to
> happen if certain things didn't happen, what steps would you consider
> morally acceptable, and what ones unacceptable, in order to prevent that
> future from occuring?
>
We didn't know then and you don't know now. You may think you do.
> This is why I think that a little extremism in defense of extropy is no
> vice. This is not to say that there isn't anything I wouldn't do. I've
> been most vehement about the laws of war here, and I stand by the
> standard of behavior they demand.
>
> The difficulty, though, is that the Luddites are not a nation, not an
> army, but are engaged in an organized opposition to the future we
> envision as most desirable. They have the advantage in money, in public
> sympathy, and command the high ground in the school and university
> system, and their dogma is far more accepted in the halls of government
> and the media. The terrorism they perpetrate is generally accepted by
> the general public as just.
>
Huh? Terrorism? Except for a few radical Greens just exactly
what are you speaking of? If we want to win we need to take the
moral high ground. If we want to do that we must really have
something much better, not just for the few, but for all
humanity. That generally precludes killing off the opposition.
> It is often said that Germany lost WWII because it lost a mere handful
> of its best minds (primarly nuclear physicists), though it is as often
> said that the wars end was preordained by industrial logistics, just as
> the Cold War's result was ordained by the relative efficiencies of two
> economic systems. Both of these ignore the Nietcheian Will as a force
> involved in either result. A free people will always be more motivated
> to triumph over an enslaved people than the reverse, but only if the
> free people recognise that there is a conflict and are determined to win
> it.
>
Irrelevant to talk of killing of what you judge to be "luddites".
- samantha
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