From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@ocean.com.au)
Date: Sun Jan 05 2003 - 17:13:26 MST
Greg Burch wrote:
> [Please excuse the lengthy quoting for context]
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Brett Paatsch
> > Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2003 4:04 AM
> >
> > Damien Broderick wrote:
> > > Greg Burch:
> > >
> > > > Is it the same piece that I and others addressed here:
> > > >
> > > > http://www.extropy.org/ideas/journal/previous/2000/01-04.html
> > > >
> > > > 3 or 4 years ago?
> > >
> > > Yep. http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/99jan.htm#_Toc456110960,
> > > which you cite
> > > at the top, looks identical.
> >
> > I agree. And I feel like a newbie again swimming in data.
> >
> > I read the post in the subject header for the first time this
> > morning and liked it because I thought it was provocative and
> > mistakenly thought it was new. The misreference to Daisy the
> > clone had me perplexed though, I didn't recall any Daisy, and
> > I've followed that area reasonably closely, and read Wilmut
> > et als book "The Second Creation".
> >
> > Anyway, having gotten all excited about the possibility of
> > some genuinely thorough and constructive analysis I find the
> > material been gone over and therefore probably some of the
> > fiercer minds
> > will be reluctant to take it up again. What a bummer!
> >
> > I just read the link Greg refers to (above top), not
> > forensically, but close enough I think. I have to say, or
> > rather choose to say, (as a relative newbie to both
> > transhumanism and Extropian thought) it is *still* my
> > suspicion that there is much in Toth-Fejel's criticisms that
> > could be "valuably" considered. That's a vague statement I
> > know but I'm wrestling now in part with the bandwidth of the medium. .
> >
> > Unlike Greg Burch, I saw Toth-Fejels comments on first
> > impression as constructive and coming from an independent
> > thinker and ally not an opponent. I thought, "Great! There's
> > nothing like criticism to make a good thing better."
> >
> > For the record Greg, (having now read your Dialogue
> > Concerning Transhumanist and Extropian Ethics) I'm with you
> > on the theist/atheist dimension (unless you've changed your
> > mind) but I don't think any,
> > correction all, of Toth-Fejels points, or anyone else's, when
> > they are so well put together, can be summarily dismissed.
>
> I suppose I might have sheathed my rhetorical claws a little more, but I
> sensed more negativity toward "the transhumanist/Extropian tradition" in
> the entirety of Toth-Fejel's piece than any particular point he made
> reveals. This comes mainly from two items in his post. First is "the
> Nazi move" -- Having had my nose poked into transhumanism per se for a
> decade (and far longer, without that label), I tire quickly of "the Nazi
> gambit" when discussing human augmentation.
Unfortunately I am certain ExI hasn't seen the last of it. The Nazi card is
all too easy to play. In the recent Australian stem cell debate even
the Deputy Prime Minister played it. I agree with Shermer in the recent
article posted to this list. We are going to see the same arguments from
the same folk over and over. Cloning. Stem Cell research. Genetic
engineering. (And these things have the prospect of positively impacting
millions of lives by removing diseases let alone doing any functional
enhancements). And so we are going to have to answer the arguments
over and over or the turkeys will win by shear weight of numbers. I think
from the standpoint of defending and propagating the memes its important
to be ready for the Nazi card. And the don't play God card. Newcomers
to a group don't all come in through the same portal so they don't all get
the same induction.
> I find that it's almost
> always not the expression of a thought-out analysis of questions raised
> by transhumanist technologies, but rather is either a simple emotional
> reaction or, worse yet, a conscious rhetorical ploy. After all this
> time, when I sense "the Nazi gambit," I scramble all fighters and smoke
> as many of the enemy's planes as I can.
Completely understand the sentiment. A Indian or Pakistani woman came
to my door once ostensibly collecting for charity. (Actually, in hindsight,
I'm
pretty sure she was collecting for a worthwhile charity as she saw it). But
she was also wearing a badge which I "recognized" as a swastika and I was
all ready to "smoke" the "enemy plane" too. As it turned out, unbeknown to
me at the time, the swastika symbol, had another older usage. The woman
certainly got a less cordial welcome than the curt but polite response I
usually
reserve for unsolicited door to door sales types.
Who was the clown here?R Me for assuming a swastika means a Nazi, or
her for not knowing that the association would likely be made in many cases
and the badge should have stayed out of the "first impression"?R
Maybe both.
> Second, it bothered me that Toth-Fejel quoted the Transhumanist
> Principles and not the Extropian Principles, and also gave little (in
> most cases) or no (in others) credit to the significant amount of
> thought that's already gone into the questions he raised. It's one
> thing, like Fukuyama apparently recently has, to "discover" the concept
> of transhumanism and be shaken by the implications, but not to be aware
> that there's a group of really bright people who have been thinking
> about these issues in depth for a long time.
The media can suck and it has its own agenda and drivers. Reporters can
be completely self serving in the way they write their articles. Sensation
sells. Nothing new there.
Seriously though, whose responsibility do you think it is to propagate
one set of memes or one particular "brand" in a competitive world?R
In democracies we all have the burden of making our cases. If we get
tired, if we cease to be effective that understandable, that's natural,
but that's not going to win us any great concessions or sympathy from
the people who have yet to be persuaded they should care. My point is
we (and I do mean we as I consider myself an extropian) cannot assume
the message we want to send will go out as fast or as effectively as we
would like just because we would like it to. (Apologies for telling
you how to suck eggs I'm sure *you* know, but there are others
listening. That's a key point in political activism, there are almost always
more people listening on the sidelines quietly than talking.)
> It's quite another to have
> done enough research to come across Anders' web site and the
> Transhumanist Principles, but to still take the rhetorical position that
> these Big Questions Need to be Addressed -- as if the author is a lone
> voice sounding the alarm in the wilderness.
It doesn't matter that he wasn't, imo, it matters that he *looked* like he
was asking the sort of questions a lot of people would reasonably have
asked. In the court of public opinion and in the parliament recently we
did not get to attack or dismiss the arguments of everyone who was
opposed to using spare IVF embryos for research just because they
derived their views from a particular religious tradition (or interpretation
thereof) because we had to *be seen* to be playing the arguments not
the arguers. They on the otherhand got to take lots of cheap shots,
and do lots of slandering using parliamentary privilege because as it
happens the worldview they were purporting to represent is a popular
one and many who don't have a view of their own go for the popular
by default.
> This was one of the things
> that bothered me so much about Bill Joy's alarmism. In this regard,
> Toth-Fejel's piece exhibits just a pale shadow of the problems Joy's
> jeremiad had: "Oh no!
There will be opportunities aplenty for folk who want to make a fast
buck or a quick reputation knocking what to the majority of the public
is at least a little beyond their ken. Again, for us, stiff, its adapt,
prepare,
plan or die.
> We're about to be able to change HUMAN NATURE!
> Better be careful!" Taking the issues seriously on the one hand,
> without acknowledging and dressing the existing literature on the
> subject on the other hand, seems to me to be disrespectful of the people
> who've devoted themselves to these questions at worst and superficial at
> best. Thus, Toth-Fejel's article triggered in me a desire to set the
> record straight and let his readers know that there was a large body of
> existing literature addressing the questions he raised.
>
> A last point also probably played a role in my reaction to Toth-Fejel's
> article way back when. When I read it, I did a little research on the
> author and discovered that he is a devout Catholic.
This *would* have effected me too. And in one-on-one its good to know when
one is wasting ones time or that another agenda's is being worked.
But in a public forum, it is what is said and hear by the *observers* and
what goes into *the record* that more often matters. The opponents agenda
is largely irrelevant other than knowing it can help one plan better and
thereby help one achieve ones own objects.
> That's fine and his
> business, of course, but learning that made me question the sincerity of
> the tone in the article in question. How can someone who holds the
> beliefs he does address the subject of the fundamental re-engineering of
> human nature without mentioning the Big Guy in the Sky?
I don't think *he* would have characterised the meeting as about
addressing the subject of the fundamental re-engineering of human
nature, (although that was a part of it). His final questing was more
on his mind I thought, will transhumanism be a good thing?R
> > I read you paper "Extropian Ethics and the Extrosattva" a
> > couple of months ago and thought it was very good. I didn't
> > think your
> > initial response to Toth-Fejel was of the same high standard.
>
> An authorial comment years after the fact:
> The two pieces were of a
> completely different nature. I took Toth-Fejel's article as a challenge
> to some basic ideas I have developed after a lifetime of study and
> thought, and wrote in my response with a much more rhetorically
> aggressive and responsive tone.
> The "Extrosattva" essay, on the other
> hand, was an attempt to set out my ideas about ethics and morality
> in an
> affirmative, "stand-alone" way.
Anders pointed me at this I can't remember all the detail, but the game
theory, PD stuff and the overall tenor I agreed with and thought it was
well written and nicely extropianised some of the better work on
"practical ethics".
>
> > Partly so you know I've read the paper, but mainly because it
> > is an unusual viewpoint and one I'm inclined to myself, I draw your
> > attention to a statement you made (its page 45 of 52 on my
> > printout. Within Dialog part 1):
> >
> > You said (then):
> >
> > "(Unlike many transhumanists) I think an "objective" morality is
> > possible, and thus that moral axioms are not "unprovable" in the
> > sense that they are not derived from empirical observation
> > and experiment".
> >
> > Does Extropian Ethics and the Extrosattva represent your most
> > developed thoughts or public thoughts on this subject? I ask
> > because I want to know where the frontiers lie in your view
> > and because I want to gauge whether new efforts in this area should
> > be a priority.
>
> It is my most developed public thoughts on the subject, because my
> professional work in the last few years has taken me away from being
> able to write about ethics at the level I'd like to be able to.
Yep. Too many important things. Too little time.
>I've
> certainly thought more about the questions presented there, and I can
> say I haven't changed my views substantially: I still find that there is
> a foundation in game theory and evolutionary psychology for an objective
> morality. Returning to the subject with the seriousness and commitment
> it requires is one of my fondest desires, but I'm afraid I can't for the
> time being.
Me either. Right now,
> I'd be very interested in work done by anyone else in that
> direction!
Me too.
Thanks for the reply Greg, I *am* on the same side as you (I think :-) ).
Unfortunately email is a slow form of communication and one doesn't
get the visual cues. And one needs to be aware of multiple readers so
posts get long.
Regards,
Brett
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