Reproductive Cloning for Elites Akin to Heroin Addiction
Wild futuristic transhumanist ideology is on parade in this Metro interview (the free paper read by Londoners on the subways) with Michio Kako, a string theory proponent. Kako demonstrates a near-religious devotion to technology and clearly supports the "anything goes" mentality that impedes society erecting any reasonable ethical parameters around the immense power of biotechnology and other areas of scientific innovation. This does not bode well for the future. Human hubris can bring disaster. Just ask the passengers on the "unsinkable" ship, Titanic.
In this interview, he has some interesting things to say, including analogizing cloning to a heroin addiction for the rich--which, of course, we can't stop so we might as well get used to it!
do we have time to consider the ethical impacts of technology?By the way, the man is a physicist. so I see no reason his ethical prescriptions should have any greater heft than mine or yours. Moreover, his area of expertise, string theory, is wholly speculative, founded on some amazing leaps of logic that cannot be tested--raising the question of whether it is belief or science.
There are some things we just have to accept. Cloning, for example. One day, rich people will start cloning themselves. How can you stop them? You can legislate against it but look at the drug trade today--people have got used to a certain fraction of society being heroin addicts. It's the same with cloning.
And there is the implication in the interview that we dummies among the general public need to accede to "the scientists," and give them a blank check--both financial and ethical:
are people becoming more interested in science or less?I am sure the BBC program will be suitably skeptical to such claims and avoid all propaganda--not!
Society is becoming more technological but our level of technological understanding hasn’t increased. The public will be asked to make huge decisions in the coming elections about allocation of resources, so we have a mismatch. Knowledge is doubling every few decades, so hopefully programmes like this will help people understand [Me: and open their pocket books].
Labels: Technology Worship
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:01 AM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
What the world needs is a balanced tv show that wakes the audience to the many dangers the future offers made by dudes and dudettes with the "know-how" ;)
So... "Whens" your show out? ^^
Ever heard of Adam Curtis? Meet your future "ally" ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curtis
Just an idea! =P
"I am sure the BBC program will be suitably skeptical to such claims and avoid all propaganda--not!"
Your "Bill and Ted" exposure is showing, dude.
I'm not the least bit crazy about string theory but it isn't completely off my list of possibilities, though I think people read *way* too much into it. I know people who think Sir Roger Penrose is off his nut and freely say so, but his theories are just as legitimate as Kako's. Neither one is God and should not be worshiped as the end all, be all of science. So their ethics don't have anything to do with the legitimacy of their work and should be at least ignored. They're welcome to believe what they want about science and technology. They just don't have the right to impose their beliefs on anybody else. So if Kako wants a blank check mentality, he's welcome to talk about how he wants it, but nobody can force it on the rest of us. And before you listen to anybody claming any kind of authority, do some research on the person's topic, and go from there. If they seem legitimate, follow 'em, and if not, blow it off. The last thing we need are mindless drones believing everything someone says just because of the letters after his name.
Wesley, I'm sure you would be more persuasive if you did not so frequently over-simplify and over-generalize (and thereby mischaracterize) Transhumanism. While some individual Transhumanists may express an "anything goes" mentality, the majority of us are sincerely concerned about technological risks and are doing more than most non-Transhumanists to raise awareness.
Sorry Lincoln: I don't over simplify. The leaders of the movement, e.g. Nick Bostrom, J. Hughes, Aubrey de Gray, George Dvorsky, all seem pretty bat out of hell to me. You are the exception, pal, not the rule.
Aubrey de Grey isn't a transhumanist; he is a pro-life activist. He has a talk titled "Our Right to Life" and much like a pro-life activist who refers to abortion as slaughter, he refers to aging as "slaughter".
If Hughes and Dvorsky had their way, I suppose we would live like St. Francis of Asissi. We would have uplifted animals to talk too.
I idolize all those aforementioned people. How could you do not deprecate the more libertarian branches of transhumanism? Why not attack Max More, Ronald Bailey, and Natasha Vita-More? And the Extropy Institute? What about Kurzweil, you haven't mentioned him.
Aubrey de Grey isn't a transhumanist; he is a pro-life activist. He has a talk titled "Our Right to Life" and much like a pro-life activist who refers to abortion as slaughter, he refers to aging as "slaughter".
If Hughes and Dvorsky had their way, I suppose we would live like St. Francis of Asissi. We would have uplifted animals to talk too.
I idolize all those aforementioned people. How could you do not deprecate the more libertarian branches of transhumanism? Why not attack Max More, Ronald Bailey, and Natasha Vita-More? And the Extropy Institute? What about Kurzweil, you haven't mentioned him.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home