From: Dan Clemmensen (Dan@Clemmensen.ShireNet.com)
Date: Mon Jul 06 1998 - 16:46:07 MDT
Dwayne wrote:
>
> Scott Badger wrote:
>
> > How
> > much compassion does the average human currently display for apes? Yes, we
> > protect them and study them and are even occassionally entertained by them,
> > but by in large we're just too engaged in human activities to be very
> > interested in what they're doing.
>
> Except for when we use them for medical research or destroy their
> habitat.
>
I don't think this is true in general. It appears to me that more people
become upset about Rwanda's apes and danger to them than about the human
lives lost to intertribal warfare. I suspect that most non-black americans
would be more upset about a fifty percent decrease in the African ape population
than a fifty percent decrease in the african human population. Please note
that I am not advocating this view, I'm just reporting on my intuition
about most americans. Black americans are not less sensitive to the
ape's problems, but are likely more sympathetic to the problems of
african humans. If I pick a different continent and a different
species with good PR, (asia, pandas) I'll get the same general result
with a different set of americans.
Before you disagree, ask yourself how you feel. I'm not picking on Scott
or Dwayne: everyone can play. To the extent that you worry about loss
of habitat for apes, you are severely restricting the options for some
fairly poor and desperate african tribespeople, some of whom could sell
ape's feet, rhino horns, or elephant tusks to buy food and medicine to
keep their kids alive.
I personally take a view that is fairly callous and cruel: human
overpopulation will inevitably destroy all ecosystems if allowed to
do so. Therefore, restricting human over-exploitation of ecosystems
at worst merely slightly advances a restriction that would eventually
occur anyway. To the extent that this generates economic hardship that
results in excess human death, I'm an evil person.
I think the way out of this mess is through technology. Transhuman-level
technology is allows a very large human population to live a luxurious
lifestyle with a relatively minor and controllable environmental impact.
(i.e., hundreds of times more people with less than the current impact.)
This is very important for the transhuman argument. The status quo is
not the alternative to transhumanism, since the status quo is unstable.
If we let the opposition assume a stable status quo, we lose one of our
strongest arguments.
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