Re: Indestructable Humans, Libertarian migrations, etc.

dwayne (dwayne@pobox.com)
Tue, 15 Jun 1999 16:06:44 +1000

"Robert J. Bradbury" wrote:
>

> (a) In my reading of "Nanomedicine", it seems to be getting clearer and

[blah]

> The ethics however, of engineering
> such "enhancements" into children, who are presumably incapable
> of "consenting" to them, will be very very difficult.

Not at all, parents regularly now make decisions for their child's welfare without first getting the consent of the child.

God damn this indenting makes it a total pain to reply.

> In light of
> the fact that the problem would currently appear to be the fact that
> the "frontiers" are closed, then one chould view NASA and other space
> agencies (through activity in the wrong direction or inaction) as members
> of a club that includes Russia's FSB(former KGB) where the sum of their
> their work to date is to limit personal freedom. In contrast,
> organizations like the Dept. of Defense, DARPA, NSF, NSA, etc. should be viewed as
> those who will "set us free", since they have/are/will provide the
> greatest funding for the development of nanotech, better software & hardware
> for communications, AI, etc.

Do you *really* feel that "the Dept. of Defense, DARPA, NSF, NSA, etc. should be viewed as those who will "set us free""?? I mean, honestly? This strikes me as, well, ludicrous.

I would see that those organisations are extremely repressive, and it is only a happy accident that the technologies of control and power they develop can be hacked to use for our own ends. I in no way see these organisations as contributing to the personal freedom of anyone other than those in the US who want to obey the law.

Dwayne

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