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It was over morally for the human speciea the moment we ended up with a system where by a single person could decide upon the extrajudicial killing of another p

It was over morally for the human speciea the moment we ended up with a system where by a single person could decide upon the extrajudicial killing of another person via remote control and we did not collectively revolt. AI is irrelevant. Once we have unleashed the mechanized killing of people via the black box it doesn't really matter the layers of systems we build atop it. Without the moral integrity to rebel against the clearest and most basic form of this system we have already given ourselves over to it.

phreeza 7y ago
When was this moment, sometime briefly after the invention of agriculture?
- nindalf 7y ago
  Agriculture was invented fairly recently, around 8000BC. Homo Sapiens have been living in groups for tens of thousands of years before that. One of these group leaders would no doubt have ordered the death of a competing group. No doubt that is what GP wanted us to revolt against.
  - DubiousPusher 7y ago
    That is not what I meant. Though the same impulse is perhaps at work, IDK. The reason I find the modern version of this as adequate condemnation of our species is several fold. 1) We profess a belief in human rights that goes back to our most basic education. Most people in the West are indoctrinated with the values of human rights. 2) We worship at the alter of those rights. We hold up MLK and Lincoln (deserved or not) as our greatest citizens because of what they did for individual liberty. 3) We acknowledge injustice. Every one of us is made aware of the horrors of the colonial period, the Holocaust and the gulag. Even the most ignorant among us is educated of the moral duties and the ethical possibilities of our world. And yet, we choose to do nothing when our own violate the values of our mythos. The ignorance that can be said to cloak the violence of our forbearers cannot cloak our own for we do not posses it.
    - jocoda 7y ago
      > 1) We profess a belief in human rights, etc We talk like that. But it's just talk. It is clear from our behavior that this is not the case. I'd love to believe that it is just due to ignorance. Sometimes it is, but I fear that we're running on tribal programming and that's not going to change in a hurry.
      - DubiousPusher 7y ago
        This is kind of the core of why I think maybe the moral failures of our time may uniquely condemn us. In the past, the concious or wordy parts of our brain didn't exactly contain the moral philosophy we have now which is supposed to counter our basic cruelty. We have hundreds of years of it. We call the enlightenment foundational to our governments and ethics. Many people hold the Bill of Rights sacred like a religious text. We have the most extreme examples of human cruelty to heed as examples. Anyone may read about them, most American school children are required to learn about them. But even that knowledge, that programming is not capable of overcoming our basic tendency toward violence and cruelty. Maybe, there are some behaviors the wordy part of the brain just can't reason us out of. I hope I'm wrong. Maybe there's an even better set of ideas than the enlightenment, humanism, and human rights that will be more contagious and more powerful to overwhelm our basic nature. Perhaps those ideas are already out there in some culture being drowned out by the hegemony of Western moral philosophy. IDK.
- DubiousPusher 7y ago
  Maybe so. If so, then I don't know what to make of the enlightenment and Nuremberg and all that.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
koonsolo 7y ago
So piercing another human being on a sharp object is morally better?
- DubiousPusher 7y ago
  Face to face for a bit of food or scrap of land is probably better than through an elected representative because we suspect you are an adherent of an ideology we fear.
blueboo 7y ago
My toddler was also convinced that dinner was a hopeless disaster when, just after he sat in the high chair, the milk spilled.
- DubiousPusher 7y ago
  I see your point but blood does not wash so easily as milk.

phreeza 7y ago

When was this moment, sometime briefly after the invention of agriculture?

nindalf 7y ago
Agriculture was invented fairly recently, around 8000BC. Homo Sapiens have been living in groups for tens of thousands of years before that. One of these group leaders would no doubt have ordered the death of a competing group. No doubt that is what GP wanted us to revolt against.
- DubiousPusher 7y ago
  That is not what I meant. Though the same impulse is perhaps at work, IDK. The reason I find the modern version of this as adequate condemnation of our species is several fold. 1) We profess a belief in human rights that goes back to our most basic education. Most people in the West are indoctrinated with the values of human rights. 2) We worship at the alter of those rights. We hold up MLK and Lincoln (deserved or not) as our greatest citizens because of what they did for individual liberty. 3) We acknowledge injustice. Every one of us is made aware of the horrors of the colonial period, the Holocaust and the gulag. Even the most ignorant among us is educated of the moral duties and the ethical possibilities of our world. And yet, we choose to do nothing when our own violate the values of our mythos. The ignorance that can be said to cloak the violence of our forbearers cannot cloak our own for we do not posses it.
  - jocoda 7y ago
    > 1) We profess a belief in human rights, etc We talk like that. But it's just talk. It is clear from our behavior that this is not the case. I'd love to believe that it is just due to ignorance. Sometimes it is, but I fear that we're running on tribal programming and that's not going to change in a hurry.
    - DubiousPusher 7y ago
      This is kind of the core of why I think maybe the moral failures of our time may uniquely condemn us. In the past, the concious or wordy parts of our brain didn't exactly contain the moral philosophy we have now which is supposed to counter our basic cruelty. We have hundreds of years of it. We call the enlightenment foundational to our governments and ethics. Many people hold the Bill of Rights sacred like a religious text. We have the most extreme examples of human cruelty to heed as examples. Anyone may read about them, most American school children are required to learn about them. But even that knowledge, that programming is not capable of overcoming our basic tendency toward violence and cruelty. Maybe, there are some behaviors the wordy part of the brain just can't reason us out of. I hope I'm wrong. Maybe there's an even better set of ideas than the enlightenment, humanism, and human rights that will be more contagious and more powerful to overwhelm our basic nature. Perhaps those ideas are already out there in some culture being drowned out by the hegemony of Western moral philosophy. IDK.
DubiousPusher 7y ago
Maybe so. If so, then I don't know what to make of the enlightenment and Nuremberg and all that.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

koonsolo 7y ago

So piercing another human being on a sharp object is morally better?

DubiousPusher 7y ago
Face to face for a bit of food or scrap of land is probably better than through an elected representative because we suspect you are an adherent of an ideology we fear.

blueboo 7y ago

My toddler was also convinced that dinner was a hopeless disaster when, just after he sat in the high chair, the milk spilled.

DubiousPusher 7y ago
I see your point but blood does not wash so easily as milk.