<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">I knew I was going to get a lecture on 'artificial'. I am more nuanced than you think. A great deal of me is artificial: eyeglasses, hearing aids, replaced spinal disc, dental implants and so on. I won't eat every 'natural' mushroom, either.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">So I wouldn't need any of that if I were uploaded, I get it. It's just not going to apply to me, so I should just shut up and let y'all speculate and dream.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">bill w</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000"><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Apr 3, 2020 at 11:32 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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On 31/03/2020 17:26, billw wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite"><font size="4">I dunno. A lot of this seems so artificial, and of
course that's all it is. I am deeply romantic and would hate to
see that changed in any way. I hate what we are doing to this
planet and don't want to live in a habitat circling Jupiter or
somewhere. Why mess with perfection?</font></blockquote>
<br>
'Artificial' is what we do. What we strive for. Nature is far from
perfection, and we are constantly trying to make it better. It's
what we have been doing since we began. If that were not true, we'd
still be swinging from tree branches. What we are doing to the
planet (that bad things we are doing to it, that is) is unintended
fall-out from that process, and we will learn to do it better, do
less damage, fix the damage we have done, and continue to improve on
nature.<br>
<br>
We will do that or destroy ourselves in the process. There is no
middle course, no 'sustainability'. That's just shorthand for
failure. It's either up or down for us. Anything else is just
balancing on a knife-edge and we know where that leads.<br>
<br>
There's nothing wrong with 'artificial'. Think about what the word
means, where it comes from. It's the expression of our highest
impulse. The word is unfairly denigrated, and I think this is just
luddite propaganda. There's a tendency to idealise nature, to regard
anything 'natural' as necessarily good, but a moment's thought
should expose that for the dangerous lie it is.<br>
<br>
Rather than the conflict between 'natural' and 'artificial', we
should have a conflict between doing things well and doing them
badly. We can better ourselves and the world well, or we can do it
badly. Mostly, we've been doing it pretty badly so far, but that
doesn't mean we shouldn't do it at all, it means we need to get
better at it. Lots better.<br>
<br>
And we are learning all the time.<br>
<br>
<pre cols="72">--
Ben Zaiboc</pre>
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