[extropy-chat] Are ancestor simulations immoral? (An attempted survey)

[A B]

Generally speaking, I'm also a very freedom oriented person. My personal philosophy is that any living being should be able to do *whatever* they wish with their *own* bodies, minds, and non-sentient property. For example, I pretty much disapprove with every current social law; I think people should be able to do any drugs they want, they should be able to have consenting sex in any way they want, they should be able to walk around naked if they want, etc, etc, etc. But I personally draw the line with directly inflicting suffering or death on other conscious beings - in fact this is the only line that I draw, period.
   
  The following paragraph is not intended as criticism, just as my own POV. It is very easy for any one of us on this list to casually claim that this one potential infringement on freedom (preventing cruel simulations) would be far worse than ourselves enduring a painful simulation. However, none of us can *even imagine* what nearly infinite pain would feel like. None of "us" has ever experienced anything even remotely like it - we physically can't even approach it. And I have personally felt a hell of a lot of emotional pain in my own life, yet I know that its sum total represents only a tiny fraction of a fraction of the level of pain that is physically possible.
   
  I can say for myself, that in my opinion, a post-human future that freely allows "real" individuals to relentlessly torture "simulated" individuals is not a future that I want to be a part of. IMO, such a future would be "worse than nothing". Frankly, I would rather be dead than live in that universe, even if I was at the "real" layer of "reality".
   
  Best Wishes,
   
  Jeffrey Herrlich 



__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20060524/a5440a35/attachment.html>