[alicebot-aiethics] translation of Hawking, oh my god what is the fuss about?

[Tamara Thompson]

Oh COME ON!

Really? any mention of altering human dna is eugenics, and therefore Nazi
like?  did I understand you?

I agree, it's a painfully complex topic, that of altering humans.

Okay, could you try to review your attitude. taking into account the
culture we NOW find ourselves in?  I mean, what if WWII had never happened,
would you feel differently?

Noone, not one of us, least of all a young(er) American, can view all of
this with a really good perspective on human history.  But that history
goes way beyond and further backward in time than WWII.

Humans have been doing 'genocide' for a very long time now.  Isn't it time
we stopped?   Isn't now a good time to view our humanity as one, and fix
the fatal flaws?

Here's the stupid way I view things from a 'single mom who wants peace kind
of naive view':  if there were other life in the universe, if_there_were,
wouldn't they look at us all and find us too dangerous to com with?
Wouldn't they look at us and how we treat one another and think that we
weren't ready for com?

I'm just asking, from this totally naive perspective.  And I'm a little
angry that you would seek (seemingly) to remind of us of why we should be
fighting each other and not out exploring other worlds.
<okay: impassioned, totally human view of things, in many ways>

I might be off the wall here.  It's late and I'm tired.  but I am
definitely tired of finding reasons for us to fight each other.  "Americans
= stupid", "Germans = bad", yeah yeah, heard that before.  Same fucking
planet, and a small, fragile one at that.

My uncle used to say that 'humans got just what they deserved'.  I think we
deserve better, and have the capacity to make things better.  Do you?

wow, what a soapbox, sorry, I must be very tired.  Waiting patiently now
for articulate slam,

Tamara



"Christopher Fahey [askROM]" wrote:

> Tamara said:
> > His use of terminology that might seem Nazi, IMHO, is
> > probably a red herring and not of great importance.
>
> Just to set the record straight, I don't think Hawking is a Nazi. But I
> do think that his techno-enthusiasm may not be sufficiently tempered
> with an understanding of human nature and of history -- and that such a
> lack of sensitivity is a bad thing for such an eminent thinker. Even in
> English, to refer to a "superman" out of the context of comic books is
> quite clearly a reference to eugenics and, by extension, to the Nazis.
> When asked if they advocated research into "creating a super man to
> replace homo sapiens", most well-informed English-speaking people *I*
> know would instantly express emphatic disgust at the suggestion.
>
> I sometimes fear that there is a certain intellectual type of person
> whose abilities in logic and technology far surpass their understanding
> of world history and human nature - and that these people put some
> interest and thought into ideas like granting rights and benefits based
> on IQ, institutionalizing or euthenizing the elderly or the ill,
> sterilizing the mentally ill or handicapped, etc.  I fear that such
> people will not notice (or worse, they will celebrate) when such ideas
> cross the line from unthinkably irresponsible and evil theories into
> real-life policy proposals. One thing to remember about the 30s in
> general is that intelligent people all over the world, including in the
> USA, were openly discussing ideas about how to mold the species through
> eugenics.  These people are not evil, but they are dangerous and need to
> be educated.
>
> On another topic you've raised: My understanding of the way German kids
> are taught about WWII is that they portray the Nazis (in many cases
> their parents and grandparents) as some pretty bad people. IMHO, most
> Germans seem to hate Hitler and Nazism more than most Americans do. Most
> Americans have a pretty dim and cartoony idea of how one of the most
> advanced, cultured, and civilized countries on earth turned upside down
> into a death machine. Most American kids know more about why Darth Vader
> turned to the dark side than why millions of Germans did. This is
> another reason why I fear casual talk of eugenics - we seem to have
> forgotten so much.
>
> Back on the AI issue, I guess I just wanted to point out that certain
> ideas are located on a slippery slope towards losing some of our own
> deeply held values regarding human rights. For example, I am somewhat
> troubled at our discussion of whether the young or the old are more
> 'valuable'. I find it ethically difficult to even discuss it. But I also
> know that it's foolish to avoid the subject altogether. Society will
> eventually have to have this debate argued openly, even in courts of
> law, but I hope that such debates will always keep one careful eye open
> to the Nazism pages of the history books.
>
> -Cf
>
> [christopher eli fahey]
> art: www.graphpaper.com
> science: www.askROM.com
>
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