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Originally Posted by BigRedChief:
So what is your definition of "improving"?
Eye glasses and hearing aids are artificially improving the species.
Come on, dude. Do eye glasses have rights? Can they vote? Can they make complex inferences and decisions? Answer some of my questions and maybe I'll get to answering this ridiculous nonsense. [Reply]
Originally Posted by BigChiefTablet:
Come on, dude. Do eye glasses have rights? Can they vote? Can they make complex inferences and decisions? Answer some of my questions and maybe I'll get to answering this ridiculous nonsense.
You have a right to believe what you want. This is a science thread. You want to bring politics/religion into the discussion start a thread in the DC forum. [Reply]
Originally Posted by BigRedChief:
You have a right to believe what you want. This is a science thread. You want to bring politics/religion into the discussion start a thread in the DC forum.
A discussion such as this might be better off in the DC section, but don't pretend like it's all about me and my viewpoint. You jumped right in asking me questions and jumping my ass for not being all excited about a subject that has serious ethical implications. [Reply]
Originally Posted by BigRedChief:
So what is your definition of "improving"?
Eye glasses and hearing aids are artificially improving the species.
I would argue that there's a very large difference between using a tool to correct a physical disability (eye glasses and hearing aids) and the ability to download the contents of a human mind into another non-human machine. [Reply]
Originally Posted by BigChiefTablet:
So do these digitized and downloaded brains have rights? Can they vote? Can they hook up their brain to an apache helicopter and mow people down? Can I reach over and turn them off if they are bothering me? Can they decide that our meat bag bodies are inferior and wipe the rest of us out? Can they have a billion copies of themselves downloaded into separate robot bodies and be everywhere at once? Can they be hacked? Would we really be improving the human race or ensuring its destruction?
No, really, sounds like a great idea.
Your views on scientific ethics are pretty wacky, dude. It's not all mad science with ethics be damned, like you've tried to make it sound in this and other threads. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Fish:
Your views on scientific ethics are pretty wacky, dude. It's not all mad science with ethics be damned, like you've tried to make it sound in this and other threads.
No, it isn't all like that. But there are always outliers. There are always people willing to forgo ethics in the name of progress. I'm sure Hitler's human test subjects would agree with me, if they were alive. [Reply]
Originally Posted by BigChiefTablet:
No, it isn't all like that. But there are always outliers. There are always people willing to forgo ethics in the name of progress. I'm sure Hitler's human test subjects would agree with me, if they were alive.
Well that's fine and dandy, but like everything else in the world, there's always gonna be some bad apples. And just like everything else, we don't let the fear of a few bad apple prohibit forward progress as a whole. I think Hitler's human test subject would agree with me too, if they were alive. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Fish:
Well that's fine and dandy, but like everything else in the world, there's always gonna be some bad apples. And just like everything else, we don't let the fear of a few bad apple prohibit forward progress as a whole. I think Hitler's human test subject would agree with me too, if they were alive.
I think it's a totally legitimate question to ask if brains that have been digitized and downloaded have rights or can vote. If you transfer your brain to a robot right before you die, does the robot get to carry on in our society just like it was you?
This isn't fear of some bad apple like Hitler. It's a serious question that society will have to address if we go down this road. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Donger:
I would argue that there's a very large difference between using a tool to correct a physical disability (eye glasses and hearing aids) and the ability to download the contents of a human mind into another non-human machine.
Originally Posted by BigChiefTablet:
I think it's a totally legitimate question to ask if brains that have been digitized and downloaded have rights or can vote. If you transfer your brain to a robot right before you die, does the robot get to carry on in our society just like it was you?
This isn't fear of some bad apple like Hitler. It's a serious question that society will have to address if we go down this road.
Originally Posted by BigChiefTablet:
I think it's a totally legitimate question to ask if brains that have been digitized and downloaded have rights or can vote. If you transfer your brain to a robot right before you die, does the robot get to carry on in our society just like it was you?
This isn't fear of some bad apple like Hitler. It's a serious question that society will have to address if we go down this road.
Yeah, and again, nobody is saying we shouldn't or wouldn't do that when the time comes. It's a long ways off, so you can relax a little... [Reply]
Originally Posted by BigRedChief:
And I would agree.
Then why the fuck did you ask the question? Did you think I wouldn't? Or were you just trying to make an argument against my position by implying that this was my position? [Reply]
