[extropy-chat] Re: Animals

[Christian Weisgerber]

Brent Neal <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> I must admit to being a fan of Brin (and especially of his indictment of
> George Lucas. But I digress.), but I don't necessarily think that Brin's
> portrayal of the obligation to Uplift species was as much about morality
> as it was about the necessity of survival in the universe Brin had
> constructed for them. 

Yes.  I guess my phrasing wasn't quite clear.  Avatar Polymorph
suggested the moral obligation, not Brin.

> But I don't necessarily agree that uplifting a chimp necessarily gets
> you a human.

Well, you need to modify
- the brain, to make it more human,
- the voicebox, to make it more human,
- the skeletal structure, to make it more human,
- ...

See a pattern there?

Yes, you can arrive at something that is still visibly and behaviorally
different from a human, but I still think it's a silly exercise.

> I mean, when I get a adrenaline boost, I don't get any urges to
> climb trees. Do you? ;)

Having just drunk a pot of maté ("none of the side effects of
caffeine" my ass!), I do feel a certain urge to go out and cut down
a big tree.  Or just walk up the wall.  ;-)

-- 
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy at mips.inka.de