From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Fri Aug 01 2003 - 07:33:16 MDT
On Fri, 1 Aug 2003, Emlyn O'regan wrote:
> Well, it was trading off current vs future human lives, without an explicit
> valuation, on an unsupported premise (that destroying countries x, y and z
> will increase extropy).
Well, in life not everything is a supported premise. The military
has to say if we take this hill we may be successful while if we take
that hill we may not. The doctor has to say if we sacrifice the time,
or blood, or other supplies required to save one patient we may
be able to save these other two.
Its all about judgement calls.
> Sure, yes, I agree. That's a natural disaster. God's the genocidal maniac in
> that story, we're just picking up the pieces as usual.
Ah, but in my premise we have a choice to do something or not to
do something that would allow us to effectively be genocidal maniacs
*now* or even greater genocidal maniacs later.
It is a "pick your poison" problem -- just as is choosing to do or
not do things with respect to say global hunger, AIDS, war in
various nations, etc. are.
> Fine, but these will likely be in response to desperate situations, where it
> is demostrable that the alternative is worse. Unlike your example.
How "desperate" a situation is is a matter of perception.
I *did* give you the body counts. I believe that only
Anders attempted to address the "present value" of human
life issue (anyone, pls. correct me if I am wrong).
> I don't think it's the same issue. When you discuss such a thing, it must be
> in the context that the needs of the many have been clearly identified and
> supported.
I thought the needs were clear -- the value of future lives vs. the
value of current lives. Perhaps I should have made that clearer.
Robert
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