[extropy-chat] Causes of luddism

[Brett Paatsch]

Adrian Tymes writes:

> --- Bill Hibbard <test at demedici.ssec.wisc.edu> wrote:
> > Very good point. But rather than hypothetical
> > quotes,
> > how about the real thing:
> > 
> >   http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/g/message9.txt
> > 
> > and:
> > 
> >   http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/g/message10.txt
> 
> Umm...you missed my point.  It's not that we should
> necessarily believe in them to make wise decisions
> right now.  It's that they believe in themselves to
> make wise decisions when the time comes - and if they
> believe we are aiming to impose our will upon them, to
> deny them any say in the matter in the future, that is
> what often causes them to act against us in the
> present.
> 
> Besides, the majority of presently living human beings
> have opted against immediate suicide.  (Yeah, yeah,
> they're still aging - but I'm talking about within the
> next few hours or so.)  We can trust their senses of
> self-preservation to act similarly in the future.

We can if they don't use the democratic processes of 
government to place us as well as them in a fatal technological-
go-slow through passing legislation that prohibits all the things
they fear. Therapeutic cloning, GMO's, GEing, and possibly
even MNT. 

My concern is that I and others may produce all the business
plans for born globals we like, we can educate ourselves as 
much as we want but we can't get away from the need to actually
persuade others in fairly large numbers not to ban what they 
don't understand.  As in the end its not just shareholders and 
investors one has to keep happy, mostly these have a five year
or less horizon anyway, but its also the folk that have final veto
- the ordinary voters.  - This is the basis for my fixation on heading
off the believe meme - on this list first. If the believing can't be
stopped here where folks are smart, educated and already sold 
on the benefits of  technology  what hope is there of stopping
ordinary voters from believing themselves to death and us
along with them by banning and thwarting the means of doing
the important basic science. One case in point is SCNT-for-
understanding basic developmental human biology. This may
not have immediate commercial applications so its not 
an obvious source of private VC funding but the insights
that would be revealed for applied science and technology by
exploring that space would be very significant. 

It is almost certainly true that it is impossible to stop good
technology from emerging but it is definately possible to slow
down its emergence considerably because the laws of a country
are very significant macro-economic factors that shape the
business environment one has to operate in. Bio-entrepreneurs
have to think global or they risk getting blindsided and they 
can't afford not to factor in the political considerations as they 
influence the field of play and planning more than just about
anything else. 

Regards,
Brett