[extropy-chat] Hubert Mania's Comments

[Matus]

Bryan Moss said:
"5. Harsher words are reserved for Hubert, who we're told has always
been quite grumpy and *not just* when an ExI board member is suggesting
genocide."

When did Robert suggest that every single individual from any particular
group be executed?  You are semantically vilifying Robert.  Hubert
receives harsher treatment because he presents his ideas as absolutes.
Robert suggests a premise, utilitarianism, and then tries to understand
the implications of that premise.  Do we kill a few people now to save a
lot later?  The people of the world faced the same question in WWII.  No
where does Robert insist he is absolutely right and everyone else is a
fascist sicko, but Hubert does that.  Instead Robert asked the board to
tell him what was wrong with the reasoning.  

" In particular I would like to see reasoned and/or analytical arguments
that above approach would or would not result in...a) A greater loss of
humanity than... b) Provide the most rapid path to a
posthuman/transhuman world"

" I am interested in the distinct analytical problem of the mess the
world is now in and how to solve it at the lowest cost (in life, future
economic development, quality of life, moral conscience"

Robert's motivation in his question is clear.  A desire to make the
world a better place with as little harm as possible.  

What is Robert's purpose in visiting the extropy list and posting to it?
Perhaps to propose problems, answer thought provoking questions, and to
learn what about himself he could make better and what of the world
could be made better, some of the same things which I suspect motivates
most of us.  Hubert, however, has never done any of these things, he has
only ever insisted that he is absolutely right about everything and
everyone else is absolute wrong, and he has *many* times posted how
disgusted he is by all of us.  Any disagreement with Hubert is meant by
his now typical emotional vomit.  Where Robert's post, though
disagreeable to many, was full of humility and sincere questioning and
concern at having to face a disturbing answer to a tough question,
Hubert was arrogant, condescending, and full of vitriolic hate, as his
posts typically are.  Hubert does not seek to learn but only to lecture.

Damien Broderick said:
"which is why I and others enjoy reading them. However, the world does
not need any provocation to think that, hey, maybe mass murder is a
really great idea. This is what the critics of Robert's post (and its
similar predecessors) have been pointing out. Whether mass murder would
provide all kinds of useful advantages and spoils to the murderers is
simply not a discussion worth having"

And Robert never said anything like 'mass murder is a good idea'  Yet
another example of semantic shifting and vilification on the part of
those who disagree with Robert.  Robert's question would be more
accurately paraphrased as 'Is killing in self defense less people now
better than killing more people later' (Robert can disagree of my
paraphrasing of course, this is just what I can pick up from the
discussion)  The key point is that Robert considers these actions self
defense, not 'murder' which are clearly different things.  An entire
ethical debate could center around what is self-defense and how much
force is justified.  But when faced with the tough question of what we
can do knowing that those who oppose stem cell research, cloning
technology, nanotechnology, technology in general, and thinking, reason,
and logic in general are sentencing us to death, literally murdering us,
that some of us choose to hide our heads in the sand and refuse to think
about such things gives us no moral high ground in attacking those who
do.

D - " To take the standard reductio, what would happen to somebody who
repeatedly posted to this list: `All niggers and kikes should 
be killed!'"

Is that really a fair reduction of what Robert said?  Robert's question
of self defense, of preserving western technology, and ending regressive
statist oppression by making sure as few people die as possible is the
same thing as 'all niggers should be killed'?  Cmon Damien, your just
converting Robert's ethical question (though flawed) to pure rhetorical
nonsense solely to paint him and his question in a bad light. 

While not speaking for Robert, I at least make an attempt to understand
why Robert's stance might be internally consistent with the kind of
person Robert probably is being that he is on this board at all.
Robert's ethical stance is from a utilitarian perspective, but most
people on this list are not utilitarian, and as such disagreed with
Robert right from the start.  However, he was asking if the conclusion
he was drawing was the valid utilitarian conclusion, which no one seemed
to argue it wasn't.  If you disagree with Robert, you better convince
that utilitarianism alone is not a good ethical model, or that his
conclusions in this example where invalid (to be proved logically) (just
like he asked) or just ignore him all together.

Or, of course, you could go the Hubert route and just call everyone you
ever disagree with a lot of names.   

For the record, knowing the historical precedent set by the use of the
nuclear bombs in ending WWII and saving more Japanese lives and American
lives than a ground invasion, one can not so easily appeal to this topic
as pure fascist speculation.  Islamic militants, luddites, etc etc Do
want us dead, and they want everything that makes extropianism possible
gone.  They are our enemies and are killing us.  But what to do about
that?  

Harvey said:
" What exactly are you trying to achieve differently that would finally
eliminate your need to repeat this again next time?"

It seems he is looking for someone to prove the logical fault in is his
logical argument stemming from a utilitarian perspective.  Not simply
name calling and hand waving.

Samantha said:
" I agree that RB's atrocious musings are maniacal, diabolical and
beyond 
the pale of any sort of morality I would call such.   "

Samantha, you also helped bring about the enslavement, oppression, and
wanton disregard for everything extropian and libertarian to 80 million
people by one of the most brutally oppressive and murderous governments
this world has ever seen, so I wouldn't flaunt your 'morality' so
highly.

S - " You were arguing the most unextropic means possible as being 
potentially better (with no real reasoning of exactly how)"

Nor did you present any reasoning as to exactly how it was'nt extropic.

S - "So being a critic is unreasonable behavior calling for severe
reprimand and even being labeled as a "fascist" but proposing blowing up
many thousands of people and centers of one or more religions is merely
being a "devil's advocate"."

Because Robert's question was one of Ethics, Self Defense, and how to
help ensure as few people die as possible.  Are those not laudable
things to discuss?  Do you not want as few people to die as possible
Samantha? (I suppose not, given the precedent your morality has set in
Vietnam)  What if it was reasonable for you to think killing 10 people
now will save millions next month (say for example a deadly highly
communicable disease)  

I am *not* a utilitarian, but many ethical  questions have real world
applications.  Consider Canada, China, and probably a few other nations,
including westernized ones, quaranteened people with SARS.  Was that
Just?  

Adrian Tymes said:
(on why Hubert response was so criticized)
" This is a discussion list.  This list is here for the purpose of
discussion.  Attacking the discussion itself is therefore worse than any
particular thing being discussed."

Well said Adrian, Robert's question was 'let me ask a crazy question
based on utilitarianism that some of you may not like' while Hubert's
response was 'Shut the fuck up you sick fascist ass hole' (paraphrasing
of course, I hope I did each persons comment justice), that is why
Hubert response was received so poorly.  

Hubert said:
" The terrorrism thread, RB started recently, demonstrates quite clearly
the degradation of utilitarian thinking, when it is applied to a spongy
and vaguely formulated "philosophy" like the extropian principles."

Note Hubert that you specifically point out utilitarianism when applied
to extropian principles.  Clearly the fault of this topic lies in the
utilitarian aspect, if you despise utilitarianism so much, why don't you
try to get Robert to understand what is so wrong about plain
utilitarianism?  Instead of calling him names.  

" Congratulations, Extropians. You have just won a new enemy. His name
is:
Hubert Mania"

Well, Lucky for us you have already clearly stated that one can do
nothing to another person in the name of self defense, so I guess we
needn't worry about you being our enemy, right?  Or are you trying to
suggest that when a group embraces an ideology you find threatening to
that which you value you might be in the right to do something about it?
The term hypocrite comes to mind Hubert.

Robert, are you really that strictly utilitarian?

Michael