[ExI] "an aboriginal human from 70,000 B.C."

[BillK]

On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 4:11 AM, Damien Broderick wrote:
>  Probably wrong there, PJ, unless "less evolved" equals "subhuman"
>  which I doubt was the belief. This was going on in the 20th century;
>  the reasoning seems to have been that they were a "dying race" and
>  this was part of a snobbish attempt to "smooth the pillow" under
>  their doomed heads (as a phrase from 1938 put it).## Of course they
>  were supposed to have no culture worth mentioning, and they needed
>  Xian salvation, so it wasn't as if the abducted kids weren't getting
>  a great heavenly and worldly bargain, whether they were to be adopted
>  or raised in orphanages to be servants.
>  There's still a huge controversy about all this among historians of
>  different political stripe in Oz, but nobody seems to think there was
>  any denial that Aborigines were fully human (of a lowly and debased
>  kind) and deserving of a decent Christian upbringing. If it broke
>  their mothers' hearts--well, hearts and omelettes.
>


Isn't there a great risk that a posthuman society will think about us
ordinary humans in much the same fashion?

If you were a posthuman scientist, wouldn't you want to try to uplift
the children at least, to give them the opportunity to join posthuman
society?

I expect the people in this list will be clamouring at the door 'Me
first!  Me first!', but less knowledgeable people might be very
reluctant to leave their old ways behind. We can say now that they
have their right to choose and should be left alone, and other PC
platitudes, but think about it.

A posthuman will know and experience wonders that at present we can
only dimly guess at.
Should uplift be denied, because the oldies don't understand, are
fearful of change, etc. etc.?

It is not an easy question to answer.


BillK