3 ms·

This word soup reads like it was generated by the Postmodernism Paper Generator [1]. What am I supposed to take away from this? Is there a TL;DR version? [1]:

• subjectsigma 8y ago
  "The world is not an engineering problem." Pretty clear if you ask me. What if we invented some gene therapy that could make everyone instantly and painlessly racially ambiguous? All looking like Simpsons characters or something. We could just poof and everyone would be the same! It would go so far towards eliminating racism and prejudice, which is unarguably a good goal. Some questions, though: 1. Would this really enrich human experience? Would it be "right"? 2. If someone didn't want the treatment would it be right to force them to accept it, even though it might end racism? 3. Would this actually end prejudice? 4. Could this technology ever exist? The authors answers would be: "Nope", "Definitely not", "Almost certainly no", and "If it couldn't or we have no plans to make it, why even discuss it?" Now think about it like this: 1. Will Facebook having "better algorithms" end fake news? 2. Will Google and Apple adding fancy new apps end smartphone addiction? 3. Will cute little notes from Discord in their app end our huge lack of participation in democracy? The author would say no to all of them, and he's right.
  • afpx 8y ago
    Hasn't this line of questioning been well-examined, though? It seems like the author is just re-inventing Greek mythology. Does anyone actually believe that the world is an engineering problem? It seems like the author is committing several rhetorical fallacies just to seem intellectual and bait people.