On August 06 2012 19:16 yeint wrote: [...] I'm basically transhumanist in the sense that I think we should expend a lot more resources in making sure "defective" human beings just aren't created in the first place (genetic screening/engineering, evidence-based parenting paradigms, better education, elimination of poverty, etc) rather than focusing on dealing with the after effects via criminal justice.
I am with you here. Why give birth to someone who will suffer more, if you can prevent it? I do not see a reason why.
If we would live forever (or very long) and create much more intelligent and advanced human beings, then we would become more stupid, the longer we lived. rofl 100 IQ always is the median Intelligence of all humans at the time of the test. So our IQ would go down. I think, when we reached a 50 digit IQ or so, then we would feel rather silly, wouldn't we. We then would become the religious believers and they the atheists. XD
On August 06 2012 19:16 yeint wrote: [...] It might be necessary to tackle those issues before or at least in conjunction with tackling the issue of death. A psychopath killing a 40 year old who would have lived to be 75 is terrible enough, what about killing a 40 year old who would have lived to be 4000?
I don't see, why the anything else but the annihilation of the potential of a future (killing) should be taken into account of our ethic considerations. I don't see a difference in judging the killing a 20 year-old or a 80 year-old. Some people might argue that killing a child is worse, but I don't know if I agree.
I definitely think killing a 20 year old is worse than killing an 80 year old. Of course one should not be penalized more than the other, but currently anyone living to 80 is tempting fate anyway, whereas a 20 year old without any freakish health problems is nearly guaranteed to have many, many decades left to live.
My problem with homicide in this discussion isn't primarily a moral one, because statistically it's just another way of premature death like traffic deaths, work accidents, etc. We should work to get rid of all causes of premature death.
Any situation that denies a person the chance to live out the rest of his or her life is horrific to me, and the more life you have left, the bigger the loss is in my mind.
So much ridiculousness and terryfying posts in this thread...
Ayway, when someone duplicates your brain you still die, only your copy exists, so whats the deal? More so, I dont think this copy would beahave like its parent. Many reactions, affections, empathy etc are strictly related to secreted substances affecting brain and probably its not something one can copy digitally. This copy of 'me' would be rather some robotlike being without emotions.
oh in the sun sun having fun
Ludwigvan Germany. August 06 2012 20:32. Posts 1913
On August 06 2012 19:49 yeint wrote: I definitely think killing a 20 year old is worse than killing an 80 year old. Of course one should not be penalized more than the other, but currently anyone living to 80 is tempting fate anyway, whereas a 20 year old without any freakish health problems is nearly guaranteed to have many, many decades left to live.
My problem with homicide in this discussion isn't primarily a moral one, because statistically it's just another way of premature death like traffic deaths, work accidents, etc. We should work to get rid of all causes of premature death.
Any situation that denies a person the chance to live out the rest of his or her life is horrific to me, and the more life you have left, the bigger the loss is in my mind.
Getting rid of every preventable way of dying is a really good idea. Then everyone (median) would live longer. So, we should focus on poverty and hunger. This seems to be the biggest cause of death.
If, from your point of view, saving a life of someone that has more years to live is better than someone with less life to live, it would make sense to use this equation:
potential of years to be alive * factor of preventability * lives saved = priority of focus
The higher the priority of focus, the more we should focus on this problem. Poverty would have a very high pof. It all depends on your assumption of the factor of preventability. Is foreign aid really doing the work that it ought to do? There are some people that say, evaluating of the aid isn't done enough and are trying to focus on it (give well for example).
Allow me to input my own view if you will, as i have spent a decent amount of time thinking about such a possibility.
It's ironic that for 10000 years religion has promised immortality and an after-life, YET "science" is here to grant it after 2-300 years. I guess this puts an end to the debate doesn't it ?
First of all i submit to you that ageing is a disease that we need to fight like any other disease. Death, even natural death, is a tragedy we need to attempt to put an end to as soon as it's in our power to do so. Despite the harm humans have done to life on earth, human conciousness is still the most precious thing we know of in the universe.
I haven't even read through the whole project proposal yet but here's where things will end up.
1. Our human bodies as they are now are extremely taxing.
Just consider the amount of energy we spend to go about in the world in our current bodies. (medicine, hygiene, dental, food, clean water, clean air, transport, the list goes on and on...
2. Its a logistical impossibility to grant everyone immortality in our current bodies. Hell, we're 7+ billion and already we can't provide clean water or sufficient food for everyone and we're running out of agricultural land and resources.
3. Immortality is possible ONLY in an artificial body or artificial environment.
First allow me to make the case of an artificial environment as its by far the cheapest way to become immortal.
Imagine if we had a system where everyone born would still have access to a natural life on earth for 50 years but during this life we would cut down on luxury as much as possible in order to preserve the planet. A disease free "Amish" existence if you will, for 50 years.
Upon reaching the age of 50 everyone's conciousness is transferred onto a computer and we continue to live in a virtual reality (by 2045 technology more or less indistinguishable from the real world) until such a time that either we choose or or we are required to be transferred into an artificial robot-like body and pursue the exploration and exploitation of space.
Bottom line is, for as long as we don't have enough resources to provide people with artificial bodies everyone gets to live in a virtual reality; as those resources become available due to the exploitation of the solar-system more and eventually all people are taken out of virtual reality and put into an artificial body.
What do you think ?
decemberTV
Rassy Netherlands. August 07 2012 02:31. Posts 1503
Lol what a hoax. Do people actually believe this is possible in 33 years? Uploading the human consience into a computer wont be possible for the next 1000 years (at least)
I already imagine a book written about this. While dramatized, with some solid pro and cons arguments. But with a tragic ending. It seems like there are endless possibilities of weird scenarios caused by this. i.e. a single person's mind and decisions in control of something for a very long time.
What is the point of "living" at that point? When there is nothing really to gain.
For some things, reason is not necessary.
intense555 United States. August 07 2012 02:43. Posts 217
this is like science fiction novels predicting flying cars for 2011 and stuff. I don´t believe this concept has been examied scientifically in earnest. The only pretty accurate predictor of scientific advancements remains Jule Verne it seems
all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. - Dolly, first cloned sheep.
On August 07 2012 02:31 Rassy wrote: Lol what a hoax. Do people actually believe this is possible in 33 years? Uploading the human consience into a computer wont be possible for the next 1000 years (at least)
A thousand years !?!?! are you suuuuure ? : ] a thousand ? really ? a thousand years ?
Sure, who doesn't want to live in another Net from the Otherland world created by Felix Jongleur?
Seriously, the poll results really amaze and scare me at the same time. Given, you're the only person among your family and friends: do you want to outlive your children's children endless times? And if all people can achieve immortality I don't want to experience the possible consequences.
If immortality could be possible I wouldn't support it in any ways. Like we don't interfere enough in nature. Death is the most elemental thing, the purest and most universal aspect of life and nature. Taking it away means putting yourself above the status of a human being. And this won't end well in reality.
The time is just an illusion... created by mankind... /// Lee Young Ho last Bonjwa on earth! /// «I'll... destroy everyone in 2009. Ok...? Thank you.» - Ma Jae Yoon - Maestro Of Zerg
404AlphaSquad Luxembourg. August 07 2012 04:20. Posts 20
All of this has happened before, and it will happen again XD Hihi, Reminds me really of Caprica of the BSG series So I am against it. I dont want cylons to nuke us! So say we all
Deadeight United Kingdom. August 07 2012 04:29. Posts 1567
To be immortal you must have life, and to have life you must be organic. What materials is that artificial brain that he wants to transfer my personality into made of? Sensationalist word choice, IMO.
To be immortal you have to 'always' be alive and 'never' die. Gee, that's quite a long time. I don't think even the materials he's using will last that long (nor have they even always been the way they are now).
You can't practically see immortality anyway, so I'll probably never believe it's been achieved.
I think immortality is possible though. The key is never putting anything into your body that it doesn't need (so quite implausible).
Last edit: 2012-08-07 06:13:18
"It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong." -Voltaire
Barrin United States. August 07 2012 06:14. Posts 4206
On August 07 2012 09:38 Wolvmatt. wrote: We don't have the slightest idea of how the brain encodes and stores information yet. This scientist is full of shit.
...all the while the 'universe' happily trolls people who think we do XD
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Barrin United States. August 07 2012 06:07. Posts 4206
Wolvmatt. August 07 2012 09:38. Posts 204
