From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri May 24 2002 - 08:54:26 MDT
On Fri, May 24, 2002 at 03:10:57PM +0200, Amara Graps wrote:
> However, if one turns empathy to zero, I think it would be a pretty good
> and quick way to destroy the human and trans and posthumans races.
Rather, it would likely be a severe handicap for the non-empaths.
While not caring for other beings might be a effective strategy if
they do not have any information about you and your past actions, in
a world where anyone can google for your past it quickly becomes
either irrelevant (the nonempath has to behave in a reciprocal way
with others) or negative (empaths dislike or at least have suspicions
about non-empaths while being more likely to cooperate with each
other).
If the survival of everybody is dependent on the total absence of
non-empathic people, then we are doomed. They already exist, and will
likely exist. The issue is rather whether they will ever become a
group so large and powerful to be a threat.
> Try decoupling the humans' passion for life from their reverence for
> life, because that is what is really behind your question. Empathy is
> strongly linked to a care and respect (and love, if you will) of beings
> around you. Nice trick if you can do that, if you that's what you really
> want. Do you think posthumans would have a passion for life if they had
> zero care for their fellow beings? For their offspring? I'm not talking
> about living one's life for others, Robert, because you have to want to
> live life for yourself first. Instead, I'm talking about the growth and
> challenges and education and sharing experiences that other living
> beings can provide in your environment, if you are awake and not asleep.
> My interest in living a passionate life would disappear in a very short
> time.
This is another reason why empathy and its other linked emotional
systems are important. Passion for life is not just pleasant, it is a
constructive motivator towards various extropic virtues, and by
sharing this passion with others the many of the positive feedbacks
we see in healthy and open societies occur.
However, I don't think we should look down on entities with radically
different emotional and aesthetic drivers or structures. Humans are
already vastly different in these respects. I think there are plenty
of niches for even very strange or frightening mentalities. What we
should take issue with are actual actions that breach other entities
rights, not mentalities per se.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:14:19 MST