[ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things.

[spike at rainier66.com]

> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things.

 

On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 10:00 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> > wrote:

> On Behalf Of SR Ballard via extropy-chat
Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things.

>……Should a scientist’s personal views matter in regards to recognition of their scientific achievement?  SR Ballard

 

It seems to have come in vogue to erase history, perhaps in support of an effort to revise it.

 

>…Renaming places and institutions is not erasing history.

 

>…Rewriting history textbooks to omit mention of major things,  and attempting to destroy or alter records, is erasing history.  Nothing less is erasing history.

 

 

 

Ja.  If we indulge in judging people from the past by our ethics and mores of today, we should expect future people to do the same to us.  This is bad news for cryonics patients.  Reasoning: from the point of view of now, everyone was an ethical cripple in the past.  From the point of view of someone from 5 centuries ago, we are all morally bankrupt in every way that mattered to them, so the generalization works pretty well both ways.

 

We should judge people by the standards of their times, and hope future people do the same for us.  We don’t even know what we are doing now that will be considered scandalous in 100 years.

 

Here’s a fun challenge: what practices or beliefs do we accept today which will completely discredit us in the eyes of our great^2 grandchildren?  I will try a few, not necessarily in order:

 

1.	The use of any kind of disposable plastic
2.	Having more than 2 children (siring or bearing)
3.	Eating meat
4.	The use of spices (the kind that require land to grow)
5.	Crowding into overpacked urban areas

 

None of these are considered unethical or immoral today to the mainstream, but today’s solutions are tomorrow’s problems.  All of these can lead to severe future problems in some way.  What else might go on this list?

 

spike

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20200704/55bb2e6d/attachment.htm>