[extropy-chat] Three-quarters of N. Americans support stem cell research

[Technotranscendence]

On Sunday, June 20, 2004 11:00 AM Gregory Propf gpropf1 at cfl.rr.com
wrote:
> These are nice smug libertarian type positions.
>  Even assuming they are correct we must take
> into account the following
>
> 1) There is zero likelihood of getting the
> government out of the research business
> anytime before the singularity.

Ah, but there is a chance to lower the amount of government involvement
and increase the amount of private funding.  It also depends on when a
singularity happens.  (There's a case to be made the government
involvement has actually held it back.)

> 2) The threat of a hovering legislative ban
> combined with the lack of government
> monies will effectively stifle research in
> what is probably the single most promising
> field in medicine right now.  This is disastrous.

If there's a government ban, I'm sure the government monies will be
taken away too.  So, what's your point?

My fear, too, is that government involvement will be used to politically
manipulate the research and also to focus more on military applications.

>> No, the only mistake here was thinking
>> that it was a good idea to let politicians
>> decide what kind of research gets
>> funded in the first place.  That was just
>> idiotic.  For similar reasons, having any
>> kind of global organization, like the UN,
>> regulate this kind of thing is profoundly
>> stupid as it eliminates the escape hatch
>> of a competitive market in case the
>> politicians in one sovereign entity all get
>> together and decide to be imbeciles,
>> which happens more often than it should.
>
> And of course the same religious
> conservatives who lobbied for the stem
> cell funding ban will be pushing for this.

Not just them, but also non-religious technophobes.

> The hypocrisy of condemning the UN as
> the biblical "beast" when it doesn't do
> what they want, like invading Iraq on
> Shrub's schedule, while using it to push
> for a global stem cell ban won't even
> occur to them.

I believe things are more complicated than that.  A lot of these people
don't disagree with the fundamental point of using government to further
their agenda, including international governmental bodies like the UN.
But the important point to them is the agenda -- not the means of
implementing it.  If they can get what they want through the UN,
they'll -- or some of them -- will be all for it.  If they can't,
they'll be as quick to condemn the UN.

Regards,

Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/MyWorksBySubject.html