[extropy-chat] Sustainability philosopy as a justification for existence

[Lee Corbin]

Leave it to Robert to get everyone to delurk a while, with a
typical incendiary post :-)

> > I've been wrestling lately with the question about how one justifies  
> > one's existence [1].

I agree with Samantha about this peculiar take on "justifies".
Besides, that word pushes buttons for us Pan Critical Rationalism
types. 

Damien responded:

> One might find oneself tarred&feathered and run out of town on
> a rail, or strung up quicksmart, if one judiciously starts musing
> aloud on how much runtime everyone else deserves to have.

Three things wrong with that, IMO.  (1) it sounds like a threat!
(2) it seems to bespeak timorousness or cowardice, that one might
be assaulted for having merely opened his mouth (and Damien is
hardly immune himself from opening his mouth in publicly-
disapproved of ways), and (3) all the answers to Robert, including
that one, fail in my view to adequately employ the Principle of
Charity, i.e., to try to see what lies behind the words in the
best light possible.

Expanding on that, shouldn't we always ask ourselves if trivial
rewordings would make a passage less objectionable? Robert went
on:

> > From an extropic perspective it would appear to me that one
> > has to be acting on the stage in such a way as to contribute
> > to sustainability, survival, evolution and presumably
> > increasing complexity of humanity.

Now I *could* argue that this is flagrantly incorrect: one does
obviously not have to be acting in such a way: millions of people
don't. However, I will try to see what he is trying to say: clearly
he approves of behavior in other people---and urges us to approve
---when that behavior results in sustainability, survival, etc.

But there is hardly anything wrong with that!  We all say as much
all the time. I don't see any euthanasia being advocated, either
here or in the rest of his post. At most he is raising the very
good question, "what kind of people should there be?". (That's
a book title, by the way, a title that causes some people to get
shrill. Hmm. Funny, I don't see it at Amazon, though I own a copy.)

> > So one gets into a question, not of whether to kill people
> > (erase copies), but how much "run time" to give them and
> > when they should get to have it.

I don't know if Robert is suggesting that existing people ought
to have their runtime doled out by the government or by The
People's Will.  I will presume not.  I will say that if I run
people on my own machinery, then it's best that other folks
mind their own business, and that no one intercede. It's an
old argument, but respect for the rule of law and for private
property has taken us quite far.

BillK defends the retired with

> Many 'retirees' consume very few resources

and other arguments. But the best argument for defending their
present use of resources is to attribute their effort and industry
during their working years to a promise that they'd be looked
out for later. Sure the system stinks, but that's government for
you.

Lee