Bits & Pieces --
the new stuff.
The first is that technology is amoral, even when there is a temptation to consider it immoral, instead.
. . Second, it's hard to keep technology under wraps: If something is technologically possible, somebody is going to do it.
. . And, finally, if something is created, it will probably be both used and abused."
The "knowing-how" is innocent --it's the use of it that has morality or not. The device [a friend] proposes could be
adapted to kill only members of a plague species like
rats, e.g. (oops; we are a plague species! (See this file, half-way down.)
. . The intent of the person designing it may be immoral, even before the device is made. But the device, even after construction, can just sit there innocently till used immorally or modified for moral use. Even an H-bomb can be used constructively. A public debate over its use is also beneficial, even beyond the debate's application to the device itself.
. . There was a Star Trek Voyager episode that dealt with a historic moral issue (as STrek used to do a lot), wherein data from old immoral (Nazi-type) experiments were needed to save a life. In the end, it happened to be used, but the doctor then deleted the data.
. . I disagree. I say a database itself is innocent; divorce it from its source, & put it to good use. [Make sure, of course, that such practices never happen again.]
Is it, then, a waste? Not at all. It is, at the very least, an introspection into your real and deepest desires.
If someone really believes a prayer's request might be fulfilled, they ask for what they really want, don't they? This can provide an insight into what you really want. If you half-believe, however, you might simply ask for what you think you're "supposed to" want.
. . Their faith in a God survives their intellectual duty to put it to the test. [Please, God, don't let me use the brain you gave me!!]
. . What an idea! That God --the supposed omni-everything-- made very imperfect people who, nevertheless, have the power to change God's mind if they pray long and hard and often enough!
Petitional, Thankful, Whining, Subjectful, Hateful.
Isaac Asimov asked the question in regards to how a computer would determine what a human was, so it could obey the three laws of robotics. (Roughly: obey a human, don't harm a human, don't let a human be harmed.) It actually involves some decisions that are difficult even for a human to make.
Would it throw off the computer to contemplate an order from a "thing" with an artificial leg, glasses, false teeth, a hearing aid, etc, etc, etc. (even a walkman.) It's easy for us, but it would take a lot of computation.
For our point, we ask what is a human... before the overlay of any culture? i.e.: what is our genetic nature? Scientists have put "social" genes into "loner" rats, and changed their nature. (That's what we need... rats that mate more!) We assume that a depressive person, someday, could get a shot that'll make him happy. Sure, this is a good thing, but what then is his real nature? If we all can get these personality-changing treatments, could we lose track of what a "real" human is? It's a great Sci-Fi plot!
Point two: the 3 laws above would also be an excellent guide to ideal human behavior!
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Due to our concern with finding out what is natural to the human animal, we are concerned that some of the more desirable attributes of our species can so often work against us and the planet.
Even back when nature was merely an artifact of a god, our respect for it was lessened, even tho it was supposedly a god's handiwork --however many people believed it-- because if a god did it once, he can do it again, if need be, with a snap of the onmipotent fingers. It was all done for our use anyway/ for us to dominate. And we had horrible examples of domination. (Kings and gods who tortured and destroyed people wholesale.) Nature deserved no respect as a thing --a complex set of lives-- in itself.
Would a heaven admit in thru those gates... a person who could be expected to treat heaven as the average human has treated the Earth? If so, then, can you imagine such a man as Reagan's Secretary of the Interior James Watt being admitted?!
If all humanity were collected into one person, and a psychotherapist knew him completely, he would declare "Mr. Humanity" insanely suicidal!
Now, in Gaia, we respect nature and all parts of it, even including ourselves. In considering man as "only" one of the pieces, we do not demote him, but include and welcome him back into the community.
One of the prime side-effects of Gaian teachings is that Man is not alien to the Earth, but is (was) an integral part of its balance. But now we have world-changing power, and ignore Lord Acton's dictum that power corrupts. He meant mostly political power, while at the moment, we speak of technological, physical, machine power. We have power that is highly technological, yet we apply little intellectual power along with it, to guide us in its use.
Power unbalances, and absolute power unbalances absolutely.
Our interest is humanity and the universe, and our place within both. Our goal is to be passionate about knowledge, awareness, and wisdom, and to have a wise knowledge and awareness of our passion."
Biking by the river, I come across an island; I even stop to see it. It's miserable--just a mud-bar a few millimeters above the water, and studded with a few stones. But what I stop for is not the beauty of it. I stop to look because... because it is nothing to see, and I am surprised that it still affects me so. Why?
If we see a bit of land around the curve of shore, we take no notice. If, further on, we see that it's at least a peninsula, we take interest. If then we see no connection to land, it's an island! The interest-level jumps upwards, and would sag again if, after all, a neck of land came into view. If I owned a peninsula, I'd be out there first thing with a shovel to make a water channel even a centimeter wide across that neck. I want an island! Why?
What is an island? It is aloof, isolated. Remote-feeling, even if near. Difficult to get to, and back. Safe. Are these things that we want to identify with? Not exactly. Well, sometimes.
Let's admit it: the meaning is all subconscious. Images from movies--but I say that the mystery came first; the movies followed. An island has a flavor of esoterica. It's endowed with a character unknown to the identical dirt of the opposite shore. Things may be allowed there that are not elsewhere... where land is all in one piece. Things are different there--animals, human cultures. Even if uninhabited (wonderful!) we'd not bring our own culture with us. Heck, we'd try not to bring our ordinary selves!
That may be the most important thing. It's why the most thrilling esoteric vacations we can imagine are on islands. There, we have an implicit permission to be other than who we think we are. Maybe it's our real selves, longing for that freedom to speak. Or it's a "alternate self" who waits for that once every X years to express a pent-up whoopee, then is satisfied till next time... or for good.