From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@rawbw.com)
Date: Thu Apr 24 2008 - 09:32:07 MDT
Stuart writes
> But the rich/poor debate is not very relevant in the face of a
> singularity; the human/animal debate, on the other hand, is crucial.
> The arguments of the environmental movement boil down to "leave nature
> alone", with some possibly minor corrections. Since our knowledge of
> natural systems is poor, this is a sensible position.
I basically agree, but I find that on the whole we're being way too
timid here. Nothing is certain. You can't stop change anyway.
> But after a singularity, we could do whatever we wanted with "nature";
> strip mine it, vary it, create all sorts of beings and plants, use it
> for artistic expression, ensure that no animal suffers or dies, etc...
> So the moral standing of animals is something that will have to be
> tackled.
Absolutely! The cruelty that nature regularly visits upon
many creatures is completely unacceptable and intolerable.
We need to step in and put a stop to it. Most of the vicious
killers, like wolves, need to be eradicated, except for a few in
some very spiffy zoos, where they eat what we mercifully
prepare for them. (Later, we may have some deer who
enjoy being torn to shreads by wolves, which would be
very fine also)
But all this talk about keeping Earth "green" is making me
sick. Earth needs to become the color of silicon and
diamondoid, and even before than, animals and trees
should not be living that are taking up resources on
which more people could live.
In the good old days, Asimov could describe Trantor, the
planet-wide city, and no one thought that that was just awful.
Lee
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:01:02 MDT