From: "Anders Sandberg" <asa@nada.kth.se>
> Actually, you would likely save more lives by finding a way around
> diffusion of responsibility than if you found a way of curing terrorism.
Actually, making life responsible seems more important to me than saving it.
IOW, I don't want to save the lives of religious fanatics, I want to eliminate
religious fanaticism. I suppose we could say that curing religious fanaticism
would save lives, but even if we cure a religious fanatic, in a sense that
would end one life (the religious fanatic's) to save another (the recovered
religious fanatic's life).
> Diffusion of responsibility has frightening and pervasive effects,
> ranging from the individual level (the Kitty Genovese case), group level
> (inefficient administration) to the global level (ignoring major threats
> because somebody else might fix it).
In that case, each and every one of us (transhumans and extropians and
reasonable scientists) has the responsibility of finding a workable and
effective way to rid the world of religious fanaticism and other brain
diseases. Is it too late to focus on education? Probably. I think our best
course of action is to help bring about a superintelligence that can foil the
plans of religious fanatics (who want to fulfill the prophecies of
Armageddon).
Stay hungry,
--J. R.
Useless hypotheses, etc.:
consciousness, phlogiston, philosophy, vitalism, mind, free will, qualia,
analog computing, cultural relativism, GAC, Cyc, Eliza, cryonics, individual
uniqueness, ego, human values
We won't move into a better future until we debunk religiosity, the most
regressive force now operating in society.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:46 MDT