From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Tue Sep 09 2003 - 01:52:05 MDT
So if I understood Randy right, some entire cultures should be managed
by other cultures "for their own good" since they are not rational and
wise, while Robert thinks people are not rational and wise since some
people choose short-term goals.
Personally I think you are falling into exactly the trap Brin was
warning against. These views are not compatible with the libertarian
idea that people can be trusted and allowed to run their own lives. The
fact that some are not rational or long-term is not an indictment of
everybody else. And policies based on the "people are irrational and
stupid" meme complex tend to be centralist, misanthropic and coercive.
In Randy's case, the response is likely to have the rational cultures
manage the irrational ones. The only problem is of course how to tell
which ones are rational. The US government right now certainly thinks it
is rational, and right now cheerfully tries to implement it in the
"irrational" middle east. Meanshwile representatives of European culture
thinks they are even more rational and actually should manage the
irrational and dangerous US if they only had the power (and who knows
that the Chinese are thinking). Sounds like a recipe for disaster. Just
imagine a situation where the power ranking was different.
But I think Robert's case is more important (foreign policy isn't
exactly the area where Brin's analysis is relevant) since it directly
impringes on our transhumanist goals.
Isn't transhumanism a short-term (and hence irrational) strategy,
compared to the promise of eternal life given by our Lord and Saviour
Christ? That argument might not convince anybody on this list, but it
makes a lot of sense to a lot of people. So maybe for our own good we
should be sent to church. The rationalist response is of course to try
to demonstrate the irrationality of religious beliefs, which seldom has
any larger effect than polarizing the issue since religion often runs on
another epistemology than we do. It becomes a kind of shouting match,
and whoever wins and gets to decide who is and isn't irrational is
likely going to oppress the other. Which is exactly the situation
libertarianism was out to avoid by trying to set up frameworks of mutual
tolerance and ways of trading even when people disagree.
Today boxers know that boxing is unhealthy, and they still do it. Many
athletes are apparently willing to sacrifice their lives in order to
excel. Are they irrational (and hence in need of being managed for their
own good)? I don't think so. I think they have a very different value
system from us, one that evaluates fame and achievement enormously
higher than long-term health, and then act accordingly. That might
very well be the best life to live for them. There exist a lot of very
strange life projects, and if we or anybody else would start dividing
them into apporved "rational and wise" lives and disapproved
"irrational" lives, we end up with the same problems as with the
religion example above. In the end it all becomes an issue of power
rather than human excellence. Transhumanism is not likely to be on the
powerful side, and even if it was, how would we handle the vast
differences in opinion on the most rational approach to posthumanity
within our own group?
Brin's point is important: it does not matter that we see a lot of
people doing things we think are stupid. They have actually been doing
great! By starting from the *positive* side of humans and their
institution and looking at how it can be improved, you get a very
constructive agenda that actually can entice people to join. If you
instead look mainly at the negative side you will become a centralist
and lose the cooperation with people.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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