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Yes! I feel a bit insecure recommending Catholic teachings, because it's been a while since I heard / read them, but there are some half-remembered arguments that are bouncing around my head, that I'm recently finding myself sympathetic towards. So that would also be my official response @Gillitrut.
That's fair enough, but to that I always say the lines are drawn, and all that is left for us is to do battle.
Or let's divide the territory at least. Since you're the transhumanist, can't you go live on Mars, or something? It would be a lot easier for you than for me.
CC @IGI-111
I guess being neither Catholic nor religious I don't find arguments about humans being a certain way relative to God's intention to be very convincing.
I don't see any reason why peaceful coexistence isn't possible.
I'm not Catholic either, but I am a perennialist which is really all that's required to hold such a view: to recognize that there is an immutable (or at the very least very very slowly mutable) human nature.
I'm also of the opinion that part of this nature makes humans unwise, and certainly unwise enough that them being in charge of their own condition is the harbinger of catastrophe. We suck at planning, everything we do has unforeseen consequences and the Enlightenment, which is most essentially the project to organize the world using reason, is a massive failure.
Like I'm fond of saying around these parts, the Jovians are the good guys in Eclipse Phase.
Because I don't think you would leave us (and by us I mean humans) alone. Hence why the strict minimum of North Korea strong borders and armed neutrality is required.
This is simply drawn from the experience of history. Progressives can't help themselves from being universalists and try to insert their agenda in literally any traditional project. Ask any country colonized by Europe. Or more recently, Afghanistan.
I am unclear on what this human nature is. Humans seem very different to me all over the world such that it would be difficult to ascribe some specific nature to all of them.
Can you quantify the "humans" that are unwise enough such that being charge of our own condition is catastrophe? With an existential quantifier it seems trivial (surely some humans are so unwise it is catastrophic for them to manage their own condition) and with a universal quantifier it seems clearly false (no human is wise enough to manage their own condition). Indeed, unless you're an anarchist it seems like you believe some humans are wise enough to manage the condition of others, let alone their own condition.
What do you mean by "leave [humans] alone?" Like, we're not permitted to interact at all? To evangelize alternative ways of being? Are humans permitted to do the opposite? To decry why us not-humans are inferior and no one should be like us?
That's funny because Humans seem very similar to me all over the world. They all have the attributes Aristostle and Confuscius independently identified them as having.
That's easy, the number is zero. No man is wise enough for such a task. The wish to be as gods is always and forever delusional hubris.
First, the human condition and society are different things. Humans have to manage society as a pragmatic necessity, and yet it's established that you can't just hand this out to a single person's whims without ending up with what we call tyranny. All successful societies pretty much have complex methods to eliminate these problems, and none of them have ultimately succeeded in avoiding catastrophic failure. Which is why societies, like humans, are always dying.
But the part we're talking about isn't the cultural aspect we've already fucked up pretty bad. It's biology, and the consequences of fucking with that are much more definitive and far reaching, not to mention our wishes around it extremely influenced by irrational pulsions.
Policy is of course contingent on practicality, but it would indeed be up and including that. Subversion is an existential risk that must be prevented regardless of it being done through hard or soft power. I reserve the right to suffer not the xeno, the mutant, the heretic if necessary.
That's not for us to decide.
Such as?
For the rest of this comment I feel like I need some clarification on "the human condition", biology, and the relation between them. It seems to me humans already manage our biology in ways great and small with mostly positive results. The person with cataracts who gets surgery, the deaf person who gets a cochlear implant, the diabetic who takes insulin, the person with a lethal allergy, are all managing their biology. Sometimes with life or death implications!
So what parts of our biology does "the human condition" consist of such that we are incompetent to manage these parts?
The exact list is the object of philosophical debate of course, but generally it includes the ability to use reason and language, pair-bonding and the building of couples and households, the practice of politics and the development of societies, and the ability to practice mimesis and create art through imagination. ALl with the underlying issues that come with them, of course.
Of these both Chinese and Greeks independently derived similar forms of morality based on natural law, but I'm here drawing more from the underlying reality than these extrapolations.
All of them.
None of the examples you give, which are of course good restorative practices that can heal the sick, are equivalent to their natural counterparts and it is not even totally clear that their existence is a good thing in the absolute. I personally do not see our increasing reliance on industrial technology to survive as a good thing.
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Funnily enough, I'm not Catholic either. I've been an atheist for more than 20 years, I just can't help but find their moral framework compelling, regardless of whether or not god exists. I guess, as the joke goes, I'm a Catholic atheist.
I'd like some degree of isolation, if it's all the same to you. Otherwise it's like trying to raise your children in modesty while neighboring a strip club.
I guess I don't understand what the source of the standard that it is appropriate to return humans to is in a more atheistic framework. I understand the logic of restoring people to Be the way God intended. What is the substitute for God in terms of determining what state it is appropriate to return humans to?
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I resent being asked to move for your sake, but I could personally be convinced.
Hypothetically, let's assume that 10 billion humans are assigned equal chunks of the lightcone, including Earth. Since I'm not particularly attached to the latter, but most are, prompting very high demand, I would trade my share of Earth for any of- several thousand square kilometers of Mars/ a Jovian moon/ an exoplanet nearby/ a distant star system/ a very distant galaxy at the end of the lightcone. You're welcome to buy it off me if you care so much.
It can't be worth much to you can it? 99.9999% of the volume of the universe is unsuitable for baseline humans, and with your disdain for enhancement, you wouldn't survive the journey to the nearest star system in the first place. If all you luddites want to pool together and buy Earth to keep in stasis till the Sun engulfs it, that's entirely your right, as long as you suitably compensate the more sensible.
Just out of curiosity: what are you going to do on Mars, or in the patch of empty space in the distant star system you own, or whatever? What sort of plans do you have, outside of just owning more and more space?
Me personally? I'll become a mind upload if technologically feasible, and I see little reason it won't in the long term.
Such an entity has far lower resource footprints compared to an equivalent human in space, considering life support. All you need is a steady supply of spare parts for the computers and energy, which is available in copious amounts via fusion or solar.
So I would end up owning a large patch of land to store my compute, and any robotic industrial equipment I need for self sufficiency or simply for trade with neighbors. That's more doable when you live close to others in tightly packed neighborhoods, which is why I value a large chunk of Mars as much as an entire exoplanet. It'll be livelier if nothing else.
So once I have my share, I'll be living mostly inside simulations, running autonomously on the outside, and doing my own thing till Heat Death. I'd likely end up in a community of like minded people, or just forks of my own consciousness or children.
TLDR: I largely care about the resources and opportunity cost of a plot of land/space. Since it takes an enormous amount of time and energy in a dying universe to travel, I value a smaller sum nearby, in company, over a larger one further away or less populated and convenient.
So you wouldn't value physical exploration/discovery at all? I'd like to spend at least a few centuries venturing out. Sitting in the same server on Mars for my immortal life sounds dull, although I agree that valuing community over novelty is a good long term plan.
Keep in mind that as a mind upload, I can trivially fork and modify my consciousness, so sending a copy of myself out to explore the universe is no issue.
I can't say that would likely be a major priority for me, given the sheer travel time, and the fact that I can experience most of it in VR, but it's always an option.
Have you read Greg Egan's Diaspora? It explores this in depth.
Also, I feel like I would at least once want to be the actual consciousness exploring. Then again it would be horrifically risky compared to my cushy life on Mars I suppose. It's nice to dream.
No, that's not one of Egan's works that I've read!
Frankly speaking, I feel the sheer hassle of space exploration unless you're colonizing makes it not worth it. It would take decades to explore nearby stars, burn an enormous amount of resources, and for an experience I don't personally value that highly. Maybe send a copy on an already outbound flight, but that's about it as far as I'm really concerned. My curiosity about things is very much real, but I don't need to see it all in person!
If you think it's not worth it to explore, why would your fork do it?
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I’ve only read that from Egan, do you have other recommendations?
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If you were an immortal robot, why would you care? Fork of an instance and set it to activate at it's destination, then come back to merge with the hive. (not that I endorse any of this behaviour, but it seems inconsistent with your frame to worry that interstellar exploration would take too long!)
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The same plans people had on the frontier, but with a higher range of activities and environments available?
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Why the resentment? I can be the one to move if it bothers you so much! Use your superhuman capabilities to build us a Space Ark, and launch us to Proxima Centauri, and I'll be the first to buy the tickets!
What? Not stabbing you in your sleep before you turn yourself into a cyborg is not enough?
I reject your gift of charity as much as I reject the mugger offering me an otherwise stunning deal of 60 years of my life for the low, low price of the contents of my wallet.
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How about I receive "not getting stabbed in my sleep for daring to do something to my own body", and you receive "not getting herded into a luddite concentration camp before you lot start stabbing people"?
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