[extropy-chat] Opportunity costs

[John B]

Quoting Jeff Medina - "Playing Go has the negative
side effect of its opportunity cost."

Well, sure! EVERYTHING you do has opportunity costs,
and I can't think of something you can do that doesn't
have negative side effects!

There's a reason economics is called "the Dismal
Science" after all!

Quoting Jeff's post again - "Demandingness is a common
criticism of consequentialist ethics -- e.g., don't
ever eat a fancy pasta dish, as you can nearly always
replace it with oatmeal or some other nutritious, less
expensive food, be just as healthy, and donate the
difference in cost to charitable causes"

While true, this ignores some other features of that
fancy pasta dish. Specifically, you gain pleasure you
may or may not gain from oatmeal. You gain
status/cachet in the eyes of some of  those observing
(not always a good thing, IMO, but there you are.) You
are able to gain different nutritional requirements
than just plain oatmeal - which isn't a nutritionally
complete food source. (That last may be a bit of a
straw man - Jeff did say "or some other nutritious,
less expensive food", but then again fancy pasta
dishes may be pretty inexpensive - pasta e fagioli for
instance.)

-snip-
"Now given that many people interested in
transhumanism express
an interest in the ethical arguments for various
technological
developments, the permissibility of enhancement, the
right to
morphological freedom (whether others consider what
you're doing
'enhancement' or not)... why are the demands of our
alleged beliefs nigh universally ignored? It is just a
fact of human psychology that we can't motivate
ourselves to moral behavior if it's not right in our
face, or if it doesn't present immediate & painful
consequences to ignore it? It is an illusory problem
because none of us really care about ethics at all,
and are only engaged in a social reciprocity game? Or
is there some other explanation? And should and can we
do something to change, acting more in accord with the
demands of our ethics?"

Personally, while not perfect, I do strive to act in
accord with my ethics. However, I do not personally
agree that enhancement and morphological freedom trump
other concerns - public safety issues among them. "Why
do you want combat augments, Sir/Ma'am?" is a VERY
valid, ethically driven question, as is "You want to
do WHAT to your child?" 

Anathema here, I understand, but that's my personal
take. YMMV, 'course. 

-John B


		
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