[extropy-chat] Prime Directive

A B austriaaugust at yahoo.com
Thu Oct 26 19:06:47 UTC 2006


Hi aiguy,
   
  You do have a partially valid objection, here. However, those situations were significantly different. Those outcomes were largely the result of direct competition, limited resources, racism, etc. Traveling to an intelligent star would be quite different. For one thing, it would very likely not be humans with our "greed and manipulation", but rather (hopefully) "friendly" machines - if we don't at least accomplish that much, then it's pretty much a moot point anyway - they'll just do whatever the hell they feel like and morality may not factor into it whatsoever.
   
  In a hypothetical situation: The sooner "we" arrive to help pre-industrial civilization A, the fewer inhabitants of A will die and/or suffer. As I argued in a different post, it is logically and physically *impossible* to ethically violate a conscious entity that: does not exist, has never existed, and never will exist (ie. it is impossible to violate the "future" beings of civilization A who "would have lived" if we had never intervened.)
   
  Best Wishes,
   
  Jeffrey Herrlich

aiguy at comcast.net wrote:
    Just look at how much our technology, weapons and vices helped the Aborijines, American Indians, and
  South American indian tribes.  We destroyed their cultures and natural environments entirely.  And to say that we would not let this happen today denies recent history, our historical track record, and our basic human natures based on greed and manpulation.
   
  -------------- Original message -------------- 
From: "Henrique Moraes Machado (oplnk)" <hemm at openlink.com.br> 
        I agree. And I even say that we'd have the obligation to help if we were able to. The prime directive is BS.
    ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: A B 
  To: ExI chat list 
  Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 7:45 PM
  Subject: [extropy-chat] Prime Directive
  

  Hi Henrique,
   
  I just don't really agree with the philosophy behind the fictional Prime Directive. I agree with what Brian Atkins wrote on the subject. "We" are constantly using (or at least attempting to use) our growing technology and knowledge to help millions of suffering people (and even a couple animal species) around the globe today. And I think that the majority of people on and off this list are in full support of that end-goal. Assuming a desire to be kind and having the resources available, it just seems inconsistent to me to arbitrarily refuse to help/uplift an extra-solar civilization based on the criterion that they are located 150 light-years away instead of 10,000 Kilometers away (for example a third-world country on our own planet's surface).
   
  Best Wishes,
   
  Jeffrey Herrlich     

"Henrique Moraes Machado (oplnk)" <hemm at openlink.com.br> wrote:
  
----- Original Message ----- 
From: A B
To: ExI chat list
Sent: Saturday, October 21, 2006 2:14 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The Drake Equation and Spatial Proximity

(...)
Personally, I generally don't agree with the Prime Directive as it has been 
portrayed in ST. ;-)
(...)

Can you elaborate on that?

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From: "Henrique Moraes Machado (oplnk)" <hemm at openlink.com.br>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Prime Directive
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2006 13:58:23 +0000

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