[extropy-chat] BM's comments

[Eliezer Yudkowsky]

Natasha Vita-More wrote:
> 
> Again, It is not my responsibility to read the email list.  I will not 
> step in to direct the traffic flow of ideas on this list.  That would be 
> the worst thing I could do.  If so, you will have another transhumanist 
> list run by one person in command. The beauty of this list is directed 
> by the flow of ideas.  You all keep threads going and you all can stop 
> threads from growing.  All of you could have boycotted Robert by just 
> not responding to his thread. 

I think I have to disagree with this.  Like it or not, one of the things 
that keeps us all from slaughtering each other in our sleeps - in the 
Western democracies, anyway - is that murder (of Westerners) and casual 
nuclear genocide (even of non-Westerners) are not socially acceptable 
dinner conversation.  When people suggest it, others are offended and 
indignant.  That's part of the glue that keeps civilization together.  I 
haven't found a good way to be offended and indignant, and it doesn't make 
me feel pleasant, but I think I have an obligation to keep on doing it. 
Transhumanism can be *immensely* destructive if it gets out of the hands of 
rationalists and into the hands of people who feel that the Luddites are 
the Bad Guys who are threatening us and that it's okay to kill Luddites 
with no more remorse than swatting a fly.  That's the classic Out-Group 
syndrome, the little button in the human brain that just switches off the 
conscience.  That little button is my enemy.  Part of what keeps hatred 
from eating transhumanism alive is that we are all indignant and offended 
whenever someone suggests casual nuclear genocide.  I don't know that this 
is the best solution, but silence is also not a solution, history shows. 
Silence is a step toward social acceptability.  On the Internet, there's no 
way to be silent with an expression of deep indignation on your face, or 
walk away from the speaker with your nose in the air.  Silence when someone 
suggests nuking Mecca would be one step closer to al-Qaeda blowing 
something up, and President George X. Bush saying, "Let's nuke the 
bastards," and everyone considering it seriously instead of impeaching him. 
  Nothing we do here has the tiniest influence on *that*.  But silence to 
Bradbury, instead of a big angry fuss, gets us one step closer to "kill the 
Luddites" as a transhumanist slogan.

Even if you don't actively censor Bradbury, you can ask him privately to 
shut up, ask him not to voice these ideas on a list run by ExI of which he 
is Director, or take other control measures.  I'm not saying it reflects 
hideously on ExI.  I'm saying it's a liability to transhumanism, and that 
Any Civilized Means are justified in getting him to shut up.  (Aren't you 
glad, Bradbury, that I'm specifying "civilized"?)

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence