From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu May 23 2002 - 09:20:29 MDT
Harvey writes
> On Thursday, May 23, 2002, at 01:23 am, Amara Graps wrote:
> > Life is too precious, and time too, and it's not my way of living to
> > think of using my precious time to categorize people on gender or race
> > or religion any other category and assign them blame for the things that
> > might have gone wrong in my life. That seems completely alien to me,
> > something from a strange race that haven't evolved.
>
> Amen!
> It's not just women who feel this way. I, too, have my stomach turned
> by talk of killing infants, assassinating Luddites, valuing men more
> than women, judging people by race, uploading people against their will,
> taking property by force to manufacture computronium, etc. These are
> Anti-Extropian suggestions.
Amen from me too! We should make every effort to avoid the
discussion of extremely unpleasant subjects, especially if
it in any way involves unsettling people's feelings. Some
might retort that extreme examples sometimes serve to
illustrate or clarify general principles, but in fact
they mostly merely serve only to agitate people and disturb
our sense of tranquility.
As for the Extropian principles, indeed they were not written
to be criticized or held up to examination. They were, and
are, an expression of our collective feelings on many levels.
They are meant to be followed, not challenged. Difficult
questions about what might happen in a Singularity when
computronium gets out of control and unpleasant things
might happen to real people should be avoided at all costs.
It reminds me of people back in the eighties who were so
insensitive that they thought about the unthinkable, namely
what might happen if nuclear war... the incineration of...
(sorry, I can't bear to go on).
And you're so right about even thinking about human value,
or gender, or race: such thoughts could cause us to question
the most fundamental tenets of our society, perhaps even what
it means to be human.
"Anti-extropian suggestions" should indeed be identified,
denounced, and rooted out on this list. Well put!
Lee Corbin
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