Re: evolved viruses

Ray Peck (rpeck@no-spam-rpeck.com)
Tue, 16 Sep 1997 15:07:34 -0700


Eliezer S. Yudkowsky writes:
>So my ethical system (and, I admit, my morality) says that drugs are
>evil,

How can a non-living object be evil?

>it says that the crack neighborhoods are evil,

Again, a neighborhood can be evil? How can this be so?

>I will not strike out with police and guns and force, nor
>attempt to turn any human from the path they have chosen with more than
>words. Not because it is not justified - I have no problem with others
>doing that, except that it only makes the problem worse - but because it
>is not my way.

So holding a gun out to someone and burning their cocaine plants is
force (and therefore bad), but destroying them through an engineered (or
even a non-engineered) virus is not? Perhaps you think that gently
injecting someone with HIV is not murder, as long as you don't hold them
down while you do it. If not, please explain the difference as you see
it.

Depriving someone of life, liberty or property through your intentional
actions requires force, in my book, regardless of the means which you
employ.

>The problem lies not within any humans but within the
>chemicals making up crack and the plants producing cocaine.

Oh, this is ridiculous. The problem is not a plant. The problem is
that certain people, either for psychological or physiological reasons,
prefer the plant to the alternatives, which causes them to use force to
hurt other people. Simple as that. If someone wants to drug
themselves, as long as they don't hurt anyone else who are you to force
them to live?

(now back to your regularly-scheduled Nazis)

----------------------------------------------------------------------
"The words, 'penalty,' 'restrict' and 'violate' appeared more times in
President Clinton's health care reform bill than in his crime bill."
-- Malcolm S Forbes, Jr, courtesy Doug Sewell (doug@cc.ysu.edu)