Ethical implications of future technology
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LarianLeQuella
Elf Wino
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Hasn't EVERY SINGLE ADVANCE EVER had ethical implications?
Fire: Keeps us warm in a cold damp cave.
You can burn up your enemy with it.
Fire: Keeps us warm in a cold damp cave.
You can burn up your enemy with it.
Shortly after WWII a complete scientific discipline, eugenics, disappeared under a cloud. At least it seems to have disappeared, together with international journals and world congresses, which obviously never took place.
US Eugenists wrote during the 30s:
The fact that a great state like the German Republic, which for many centuries has helped furnish the best that science has bred, has in its wisdom seen fit to enact a national eugenic legislative act providing for the sterilization of hereditarily defective persons seems to point the way for an eventual worldwide adoption of this idea.”
Some more details:
The university’s reputation led Dr. Harry H. Laughlin, a prominent national eugenicist, to propose Charlottesville to benefactor Wickliffe Draper as home for a national center for eugenics education.
Laughlin knew Virginia. Author of a 1914 model sterilization law for states, he also had corresponded extensively with Plecker about Virginia’s race-purity campaign. He had given testimony in the Carrie Buck legal case and helped to win passage of the Racial Integrity Act.
In 1935, Laughlin’s affinity with Nazi thinking was shown further when he sent a paper on American sterilization law to be read by a like-minded colleague at a World Population Congress in Berlin. The colleague applauded Nazi racial principles and ended his speech with: “To that great leader, Adolf Hitler!”
Draper, the benefactor, was keenly interested in eugenics and attended the same Berlin conference. He also visited Charlottesville, but Laughlin’s 1936 proposal for a national center on eugenics education was not adopted.
In the same year that Laughlin floated the U.Va. idea, he received from Nazi-controlled Heidelberg University an honorary degree for his achievements in the “science of racial cleansing.”
Laughlin wrote back, according to Lombardo, that he found the degree a personal honor and “also evidence of a common understanding of German and American scientists of the nature of eugenics.”
"Eugenics" meaning "harmony in our genetic material" escaped any ethical debate. Instead the image of Nazi Germany being uniquely evil was created.
It is dangerous and unethical for any science to exist with lies or deception about history
That fact alone should make everyone suspicious. Eugenics still exist in many sciences, working "undercover", furtherly escaping ethical control. It will not create "better human races" but further catastrophies, as long as it is kept behaving the way it does.
US Eugenists wrote during the 30s:
The fact that a great state like the German Republic, which for many centuries has helped furnish the best that science has bred, has in its wisdom seen fit to enact a national eugenic legislative act providing for the sterilization of hereditarily defective persons seems to point the way for an eventual worldwide adoption of this idea.”
Some more details:
The university’s reputation led Dr. Harry H. Laughlin, a prominent national eugenicist, to propose Charlottesville to benefactor Wickliffe Draper as home for a national center for eugenics education.
Laughlin knew Virginia. Author of a 1914 model sterilization law for states, he also had corresponded extensively with Plecker about Virginia’s race-purity campaign. He had given testimony in the Carrie Buck legal case and helped to win passage of the Racial Integrity Act.
In 1935, Laughlin’s affinity with Nazi thinking was shown further when he sent a paper on American sterilization law to be read by a like-minded colleague at a World Population Congress in Berlin. The colleague applauded Nazi racial principles and ended his speech with: “To that great leader, Adolf Hitler!”
Draper, the benefactor, was keenly interested in eugenics and attended the same Berlin conference. He also visited Charlottesville, but Laughlin’s 1936 proposal for a national center on eugenics education was not adopted.
In the same year that Laughlin floated the U.Va. idea, he received from Nazi-controlled Heidelberg University an honorary degree for his achievements in the “science of racial cleansing.”
Laughlin wrote back, according to Lombardo, that he found the degree a personal honor and “also evidence of a common understanding of German and American scientists of the nature of eugenics.”
"Eugenics" meaning "harmony in our genetic material" escaped any ethical debate. Instead the image of Nazi Germany being uniquely evil was created.
It is dangerous and unethical for any science to exist with lies or deception about history
That fact alone should make everyone suspicious. Eugenics still exist in many sciences, working "undercover", furtherly escaping ethical control. It will not create "better human races" but further catastrophies, as long as it is kept behaving the way it does.
Mark6
Philosopher
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Specific examples, please. Which sciences, which projects, and how exactly does it "behave"?
I have a feeling you have a different definition of "eugenics" than I do.
Either that, or you are just full of bovine byproduct.
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CaveDave
Semicentenarian Troglodyte
CaveDave
Semicentenarian Troglodyte
LarianLeQuella
Technology can be considered akin to a fire. If used properly it can keep us warm; if used improperly it can destroy us all. In many cases it would seem the more advanced the technology, the finer the line between keeping us warm and burning us up becomes.
Technology can be considered akin to a fire. If used properly it can keep us warm; if used improperly it can destroy us all. In many cases it would seem the more advanced the technology, the finer the line between keeping us warm and burning us up becomes.
Any examples of the bit I bolded above having actually happened?
excaza
Illuminator
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Look what happened to the dinosaurs and their asteroid grappling hook.
Prometheus
Acolyte of Víðarr
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So how what makes you think it's true? There may be a few technologies that have the potential to "destroy us all", but they are very very few. I don't see, for instance, how clothing has the potential to destroy us all, but you write as though this were an intrinsic aspect of all technology in general. It's not.
Nosi
Illuminator
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The above I don't know, but how evolution fixed the human infant brain growth issue/female hip design limit was by having the little human's brain continue growing after he/she left the womb. Infants aren't born with fused skulls. Soft heads mean room to grow as well as squeezing through tight spots.
Womb development is critical for the digestive system, lungs and heart. Little bones are full of lots of cartilage, allowing for extra-womb growth and hardening. Little humans don't really reached formed baby hood until they are nine months to a year old.
Mark6
Philosopher
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Almost certainly. In Western world hips ARE getting narrower, as women who otherwise would have died in their first childbirth, contnue reproducing.
Fire is technology.
Roboramma
Of course, but if you knew there was a potential for such a danger would you want to wait until it destroyed us all? Or would you want to perhaps put some safeguards into place, possibly even restraints into such developments
I didn't say clothing does
You can't tell me that there aren't technologies that if used improperly can be extremely dangerous...
Cuddles
No it isn't, fire occurs in nature. I suppose when humans use their knowledge to create a fire it is.
Of course, but if you knew there was a potential for such a danger would you want to wait until it destroyed us all? Or would you want to perhaps put some safeguards into place, possibly even restraints into such developments
I didn't say clothing does
You can't tell me that there aren't technologies that if used improperly can be extremely dangerous...
Cuddles
No it isn't, fire occurs in nature. I suppose when humans use their knowledge to create a fire it is.
So just to be clear, when you say "Technology can be considered akin to a fire. If used properly it can keep us warm; if used improperly it can destroy us all." you mean "some technology can be considered akin to fire..."