Re: Filtered Extropians

Forrest Bishop (forrestb@ix.netcom.com)
Fri, 30 Oct 1998 18:35:15 -0800

> Subject: Re: Amusing anti-cloning arguments
>
> >From: Robin Hanson <hanson@econ.berkeley.edu>
>
> Max More writes:
>
> >In my scenario, the already-grown unaltered humans have decided to go into
> >space. They have every right to do this.
>
> It isn't obvious that they do have every right to do this. If you are
> responsible for the total package you put your children into, their
> environment plus how tuned they are for that environment, then it becomes
> open to question whether it was all right to take your kids into space.

....

> This seems a complicated rule-based morality, which I can't follow very
> well. My more consequentialist morality just asks about how much worth
> living those lives would be. Parental choices for themselves are no excuse.
>
> >If someone left China and came to the USA, and then had a child here, that
> >child would usually not have a defensible moral objection if they wish they
> >had been born in China.
>

This actually happened to me! My ancestors left their nice, sunny, verdant locale.

They moved northward to hang around glaciers and huddle in snow caves without even consulting me. Now my skin is so damn sensitive I can't spend more than a few minutes in ordinary sunlight without damaging it, let alone swing through trees.
They didn't even leave me a note- no inscription on a rock, no phone call to say "I'm sorry", nothing.

Forrest

--
Forrest Bishop
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