From: natashavita@earthlink.net
Date: Fri Jan 03 2003 - 11:44:15 MST
Damien wrote:
>This merry little piece by former extropian frequent-poster Lyle Burkhead
(quoted as `Augustine' in THE SPIKE) reminded me that it's *not* an
egregious libel to claim that some transhumanists are racists and fans of
Hitler.<
Okay, let's debate this.
First, how can a transhumanist be a racist if the very meaning of
transhumanist runs counter to the very meaning of a racist?
Or, are you stating that some *people who might call themselves
transhumanists through an association of some specific set of beliefs and
goals of transhumanists* are racists?
If a person, such as Lyle Burkhead (I don't know him, but the name is
familiar), or Mr. X, turns adverse to and disconnects from a belief system
that he once felt aligned to, and in his adversity begins to act in a
manner that is ethically questionable, would you call him the same person
who he had been in a very different mind set?
Or, would you claim that Mr. X had some sort of mental disconnect and that
his behavior was more symptomatic of anger and range and that because of
this behavioral dysfunction was emotionally out of touch with reality?
Or, would you claim that Mr. X was still the very same person he had been
and that the identity and affiliations he had once claimed were in a state
of stasis? -- That he was still a transhumanist (if he ever claimed to be,
I don't know) and that his strain or brand of beliefs, in their racist
tone, are transhumanist?
Natasha
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