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That may drastically slow down human progress in terms of technology. If one posits that we have a moral obligation to future humans to make sure their lives ar

That may drastically slow down human progress in terms of technology. If one posits that we have a moral obligation to future humans to make sure their lives are ones with lower suffering, and if technology, especially medical technology, will take us there, then your idea essentially says that it is immoral to slow down human progress, because more people will suffer. That's how I see it anyway. I'm a techno-optimist, given the nature of technology in our species' development.

8note 4y ago
How are you measuring suffering over time? does keeping somebody alive in extreme pain raise or lower it? Its quite notable that modern medics has made its fair share of opium addicts. I don't know whether that's a feather in the modern cap or not
roeles 4y ago
I would be very interested in seeing a study that concludes that technology has made us suffer less. Perhaps it makes sense to define suffering? If you would define it as "expecting from the world what it can not give you", I think we don't suffer less than previous generations. We have more, but we also expect more.
- epups 4y ago
  If we define less suffering as living 2x longer, with 100x less child mortality and access to education, safety and entertainment that not even kings in previous generations had, then we should thank technology for that. You can of course go full relativism and say that our society cannot be judged as better or worse than any other, but I think that's disingenuous.
jrm4 4y ago
Very fair argument. But I strongly dispute your second assumption, that of "technology taking us there," at least today: Right now, I see absolutely no reason to believe in a strongly correlated association between tech advancement and e.g. medical improvement. E.g. I'd argue that the biggest medical improvement of my lifetime was in a sense a step backwards, in that it was our collective discovery and consequent reduction in smoking.

8note 4y ago

How are you measuring suffering over time? does keeping somebody alive in extreme pain raise or lower it? Its quite notable that modern medics has made its fair share of opium addicts. I don't know whether that's a feather in the modern cap or not

roeles 4y ago

I would be very interested in seeing a study that concludes that technology has made us suffer less. Perhaps it makes sense to define suffering? If you would define it as "expecting from the world what it can not give you", I think we don't suffer less than previous generations. We have more, but we also expect more.

epups 4y ago
If we define less suffering as living 2x longer, with 100x less child mortality and access to education, safety and entertainment that not even kings in previous generations had, then we should thank technology for that. You can of course go full relativism and say that our society cannot be judged as better or worse than any other, but I think that's disingenuous.

jrm4 4y ago

Very fair argument. But I strongly dispute your second assumption, that of "technology taking us there," at least today: Right now, I see absolutely no reason to believe in a strongly correlated association between tech advancement and e.g. medical improvement. E.g. I'd argue that the biggest medical improvement of my lifetime was in a sense a step backwards, in that it was our collective discovery and consequent reduction in smoking.