[ExI] Transhumanism and Politics

Rafal Smigrodzki rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com
Tue Jan 22 16:47:34 UTC 2008


On Jan 22, 2008 7:59 AM, Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 22, 2008 12:46 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:
> > ### I hope that you are not suggesting that those who are not
> > "credited" may legitimately resort to violence to obtain what they
> > desire?
>
> I am not implying anything about "legitimacy".
>
> I am just saying that in our experience legality rarely prevent
> somebody who is threatened by death - as Riccardo Campa argues it is
> exactly the case for people barred from a radical longevist therapy -
> to resort to absolutely anything.
>
### I am glad that you are not trying to make a normative statement
affirming the legitimacy of violence. You are then not saying that
"It's OK attack others to save your own life", you make only the
innocuous if banal claim that some people will resort to anything to
get what they want. Fine with me, although I cannot help noticing how,
predictably, some other commentators chime in to say that initiation
of violence *is* legitimate.

Still, I need to take issue with this descriptive e claim you made -
legality and legitimacy do, in fact, prevent people from saving their
own lives. After all, people in need of a transplant do not usually
hunt down a donor and rip out a liver or kidney that could save their
life. Firemen, policemen and soldiers obey the oaths they took, and
march into fire. Owners of bicycles do not kill SUV drivers to claim a
safer mode of transportation. Our whole society is built on a network
of forbearances and concessions where we agree not harm each other for
a short-term gain. In fact, wherever this network is weakened,
suffering ensues and progress stalls.

This is why, where you shy away from a normative statement, I will
proclaim the following: Not even a chance for an indefinitely long
life justifies taking the life or otherwise infringing the property of
an innocent, i.e. non-violent person. In practical terms, intellectual
property protection may not be weakened under the pretext of "need".
Any means necessary to protect intellectual property, as any
legitimate property, can and should be used. Should you escape aging
by violent taking, you must recompense the owner you hurt, or be
hunted until the stars burn out.

Rafal



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