From: J Corbally (jcorb@iol.ie)
Date: Sat Aug 09 2003 - 20:12:18 MDT
>Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 18:28:34 +0200
> >From: Anders Sandberg <asa@nada.kth.se>
>Subject: Thinking the unthinkable: taboos and transhumanism
<snip>
>It turns out that framing a trade-off as a tragic trade-off rather
>than a taboo trade decreases moral outrage. If the PAM affair had
>not been framed as the taboo tradeoff between money and human lives
>but instead as a tragic trade-off between the need for knowledge and
>having to use money in "dirty" ways (or even better, as a secular
>trade-off between money and knowledge), the outrage would have been
>smaller. Similarly we transhumanists should try to frame our visions
>in terms of what is sacred when we are proposing taboo-breaking
>("Yes, modifying the genome changes the "order of nature". But to do
>otherwise would block human freedom and well being!") or seek to
>show the different sacred landscape we are experiencing (although
>this is much harder).
>All in all, a very good article.
And an excellent summation.
"....and you do value the freedom and well being of all humans, right?"
What other items should be on the list for the taboo trade-off
treatment? I wonder how it would affect Cryonics, for example.
James...
>- --
>- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>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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