All ... Created Equal

July 4, 2010, the United States commemorated the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It has been 234 years since Jefferson and his co-signers found it “self-evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” So far, we humans are the only ones having this conversation.

What if our Posterity (mentioned a few years later in the Preamble to the Constitution) is post-human?

Francis Fukuyama, economist, futurist and member of former President Bush's Bioethics Council from 2001 to 2005, has written that transhumanism is the most dangerous idea, one that threatens the equality of us all. Transhumanists do pose new debates which are eagerly entered into by bioethicists. However, those bioethicists are still re-hashing the old debates. Which of our offspring, mental and physical, organic and non-organic are human enough to deserve our protection and aide. Who gets the use and benefit of all that new technology? Do we change only our own bodies or may we manipulate the bodies and (possibly) the minds of our children – and then their children. What will divide the haves and have-nots? Where is the line between enhancement and disfiguration?

It’s probably not the technology or the use of it that threatens to infringe on Jefferson’s self-evident rights. The danger – or at least the beginnings of it - is the philosophical and legal contemplation that rights are ideas and word games, not endowed by our Creator, not “unalienable,” and certainly not "self-evident." Rights become dependent on might, artifacts that the most powerful or numerous decide to recognize.

My concern is that the "bio-ethicists" underscore our lack of seriousness and consistency when contemplating our children of tomorrow. And that we are not giving them a good example for how we would like them to treat us.

Comments

transhumanism is a threat because of the supposed concideration future people might have on not entirely human entitites?

that 'legal experts' in the future might concider an enhanced person non-human?

this seems to me quite retarded, for a number of reasons. But primarily, what makes you think the general dynamics of the constitution will be attacked by a majority once this technology takes effect?

In such a future, any suspected crime woudl very likely be able to be verified simply by uploading the memory of that day...you could have a fast 'data snipper' go through all the people in that lcoation at that time...then all their memories, then link them with the crime, and then, some impartial mediator would delve justice as it has always been done.

In a world where peopel can read each others thoughts upon permission, or in a classroom peopel can see the math whiz perform a math problem, them in turn, becoming math whizes, what makes you think a strong federal government or a democratic process might be used to disenmpower the individual?

if such technology were developed, then it makes sense that we would have developed robotic AI and thus not ever have to do anything in labour, while a space elevator and scramjet would have likely satisfied our mineral process by affording us dirt cheap acces to space (add on that robots, who will be doing the work, and not concious, as the AI would be written by humans and real intelligent machines for them to be subconcious, making them automatically by virtue of lesser  conciousness, jsut a program) and nanotech affording us dirt cheap fuel (solar cell + water from street = hydrogen that goes to a fuel cell which = water + electricity....whole process starts anew, decentralized power, battery of vehicle attached to the fuel cell...think of an antenna up the space elevator or cheap space based soalr power that will have decreased in price due to cheap access to space in roder to be a real alternative, if nuclear fusion would not have already done the trick)

with all of these things solved, why would the 'collective' do anything?

furthermore, even if the collective hooked up into some sort of nightmare socialist democracy where everyoen voted on a second to second basis, allowing for the massive taking of property at will...

would logic and the mind-expansive abilities allowed by seeing the geniuses solve problems, not improve the reasoning capacity (additionalyl with genetic engineering) of all the citizens to the point that they would see that eventually, the taking of property at will would harm the collective...because by any observable measure, when you instill such policies, the individuals feel insecure, leading to the insecurity of the collective....this is after all, the most beneficial system to all those invovled, from a purely logical basis..

so the same technology that would allow all citizens to vote for such moronic policies, would exist that would allow exponential mind intelligence through mind observation that would render an uneducated citizenry a thing of the past....as most will be intelligent enough to see that such a decision would not be the best course of action and the choice becoming inevitable rather than a choice...hence clarity and itnelligence. You take more from those that have (assuming there is a distinction by 2100), you will simply be reducing those that produce (they will stop working) and hence have less...It is only there to share...as long asyou never share it.

I do think there will be many problems and benefit6s with such a technology.....but I do not think the legal interpretation of the constitution, in this respect, will be one of them..

i think it will be pretty self-evident, that whatever person sits on the bench...if it is at all relevent after such a leap in human intelligence and reason....that anything conciousness will be interpreted as 'human'.....

Otherwise concious entities just like a human, could be installed in a femmbot....and feminists would simply not like that...it wouldn't go well to say the least...isn't that right lbierals?

and so, as of course, they will likely broaden the definition to anything concious or resembling human conciousness...for the arguement woudl go, if they are human of conciousness and reside in a body that although not entirely biological, they can feel or not feel but have a humanoid experience, then by every intended purpose they are human....for what really sets us apart is our conciousness not or form, or flesh....

thats how they would interpret it......I do not think that people are going to be able to ahve the same respect for human dignity and then say...oh, this guy is 'technically' a robot even though he hs a virtualyl identical conciousness to me, so I can treat him like shit..

it won't be reconcilable...either society will treat all humans well, and their mirror conciousness, or no one will be treated with dignity...

and hence the decision will only be natural. I also think it takes pwoer away from the state, because such a neurally plugged citizenry  would not be able to be 'mind shaped' from a central authority as the information will be collectively debated...and no one will accept a law that would treat one conciousness over another simply because they are not entirely biological in nature, because some jackasses sit in congress...at that point everyone will be making the decision in a neural internet....and due to the variety of perspectives it will converge like in a wikipedia sort of process on the truth and logic...what is logical in such a case, and no one will openly be able to admit in the thought processes that treating someone with the same identitcal conciousness or similar or even disimlar but same functions of conciousness different just because they inhabit a different material set up, will be justified...

hence the most rational decision will be made without any central authority, which won't exist, as this neural sort of internet will replace it. The most intelligent thoughts being seen by others and emulated, accepted, until the msot rational thought is accepted....in the realm of thought and transparency, only truth and logic is acceptable,deceptions rott away...

However, if such an evolution in human mind and form does not come to pass before robots with intelligences take over, then this possibility of yours is not entirely out of the question.

Humans as the yare now, without the benefit of neural network technology, would be just as prone to treating others different than they badly, than they have previously.

But obvcourse, that assumes that an intelligent robot will be possible and even not concur with the realization of a neural net...which will likely go hand in hand by the time any of this specualtive technology is possible.

TexasGOPVote
 

© 2015 TexasGOPVote  | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy