> I ask this not just because it's a difficult question, but because
> Extropy has rationality at its core. Now it's possible to think of
> rational reasons for war, genocide, culling or anything else you
> care to mention, but when a reason against it is called for we tend
> to fall back on morality, ethics, and right and wrong. These IMHO
> are weak arguments against raw and unrelenting rationality, so what
> defenses do we have against someone who's taken a very different
> slant on Extropy?
and "den Otter" <otter@globalxs.nl> continues:
> Seriously...Wax has a point. Why are Star Trek (or My Little Pony)
> ethics so popular with this allegedly rational crowd? It does not
> compute @:-|
I can't believe what I'm reading here! You guys have been
seriously deluded by the irrationalist's claims about the alleged
stark/cold hideousness of rationality. Isn't it all a false,
irrational, and completely backwards lie to insure the servivability
of irrational memes?
First and foremost rationality seeks after the best that is
possible, whatever that is. This is the absolute stone cold rational
fact! Nothing can be any different, unless of course you're being
irrational. And it's not seeking after just the best for the one
single best person, but that which is best for everyone.
Culling, hellfire/damnation, and all that stems from some very
old and irrational religious ideas and assumptions. False ideas like
there are a fixed set of resources to go around to each individual,
and the more people there are the less each person gets. Or other
false, hate provoking, ideas like there is some fundamental eternal
unchangeable, unrepairable, "essence" or "soul", where all that are
less than the (single or those less than me?) best souls, must be cast
into hell or culled or whatever.
In contrast, for an extropian, it isn't what you are (or have
done) that matters right? It is what you can become or what you can
clean up or make up for right? There is no culling required for the
stone cold rationalists. Rather, the extropian wants to use her
infinite resources (or seek to obtain the required resources) to help
those that are lessor (or to pay back those that have been unjustly
wronged by her) to be at least equal to herself as they desire right?
Only this is perfect justice which is perfectly rationally compatible
with perfect mercy...
Rationalists first and foremost want the best that is possible
and use the best possible rational means to discover and seek after
that for everyone! Anything that deviates from this is faithless,
despairing, stone cold, irrationalism and less than the best. It is
only the irrationalists that think they want, or think they must
accept, something less than this best possible that are the faithless
stone cold, hateful, evil ones - the ones that have been irrationally
deluded into thinking that something less than the best is really what
they want.
*IF* "My Little Pony ethics" are the best, don't extropians
seek to find a way to achieve it perfectly for all? If not, then we
seek after whatever is better right? The most rational way
possible?...
Brent Allsop