2 ms·

I don't think I'm the right person for this. To do it right -- to propose something like that that isn't just an off the cuff manifesto -- you'd have to do a l

by api 12y ago

I don't think I'm the right person for this. To do it right -- to propose something like that that isn't just an off the cuff manifesto -- you'd have to do a lot of research and work out all the economics and game theory everything out. You'd have to do a real scholarly treatment of it. It'd take at least someone deeply educated in economics with several years to dedicate. Then you'd have to steel yourself against the howling, since if you actually put something like that out there you'd be a communist baby eating God hating liberal right winger Illuminati Satan worshipper who wants to poison us all with GMO from fracking wastewater and torture kittens and make us all take the mark of the beast, or something.

eli_gottlieb 12y ago
>Then you'd have to steel yourself against the howling, since if you actually put something like that out there you'd be a communist baby eating God hating liberal right winger Illuminati Satan worshipper who wants to poison us all with GMO from fracking wastewater and torture kittens and make us all take the mark of the beast, or something. So, basically, you'd be me. Well, except for the Mark of the Beast thing: I think even wearing a logo on a T-shirt is a little too dehumanizing.
- api 12y ago
  If you do try to flesh out an idea like this, I've got some suggestions. They're my opinion only of course. 1) Be relentlessly practical. No "magic happens here" utopian vaporware bullshit. 2) Be historically practical. Don't presuppose the existence of a purely volitional state from which all initiation of force or fraud has been outlawed, or other such bits of moral futurism. We are simply nowhere near such things. Grapple with political realities. We still live in a world that is absolutely ruled by force and arbitrary authority. If we want to get beyond that, we have to chart a practical course toward the betterment of the human condition that begins where we are now and takes concrete understandable steps. 3) Put forward a vision, but also talk about baby steps -- about things we might do here and now to evolve toward a condition like this without requiring the whole kabang to be sold at once. 4) I'd suggest dealing with the critics -- and there will be shitloads of them from every quarter of the political landscape -- by turning sanctimonious moral arguments around. A conservative is implicitly advocating the maintenance of the present condition and its state of injustice and suffering, etc. A liberal is inconsistent -- claiming to advocate progress while opposing its concrete methods. Greens (of the "religious" sort) have simply made a god out of fate -- the naturalistic fallacy. 5) One specific thing you'll get is the Hitler comparison. Anyone who advocates going beyond the human condition in some deep or fundamental way gets compared to Hitler. In addition to pointing it out as dishonest hyperbole, it's important to point out that Hitlerian eugenics is the opposite of this. It's curing the disease by killing the patient... the very opposite of making the means of human betterment more universally available.
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    Frankly, I'm saving my Hitler and supervillain points for later. My hope is to have things firmly in hand by the time the press and public catch on and then be able to stand there going, "Even if you hit me with everything you've got, resistance is useless, useless, useless, completely and utterly and absolutely futile and useless!!!!" You can only pull off multiple exclamation points once in a lifetime. (Real answer: I'm a computer scientist, not a geneticist :-(.)

by api 12y ago

eli_gottlieb 12y ago

>Then you'd have to steel yourself against the howling, since if you actually put something like that out there you'd be a communist baby eating God hating liberal right winger Illuminati Satan worshipper who wants to poison us all with GMO from fracking wastewater and torture kittens and make us all take the mark of the beast, or something. So, basically, you'd be me. Well, except for the Mark of the Beast thing: I think even wearing a logo on a T-shirt is a little too dehumanizing.

api 12y ago
If you do try to flesh out an idea like this, I've got some suggestions. They're my opinion only of course. 1) Be relentlessly practical. No "magic happens here" utopian vaporware bullshit. 2) Be historically practical. Don't presuppose the existence of a purely volitional state from which all initiation of force or fraud has been outlawed, or other such bits of moral futurism. We are simply nowhere near such things. Grapple with political realities. We still live in a world that is absolutely ruled by force and arbitrary authority. If we want to get beyond that, we have to chart a practical course toward the betterment of the human condition that begins where we are now and takes concrete understandable steps. 3) Put forward a vision, but also talk about baby steps -- about things we might do here and now to evolve toward a condition like this without requiring the whole kabang to be sold at once. 4) I'd suggest dealing with the critics -- and there will be shitloads of them from every quarter of the political landscape -- by turning sanctimonious moral arguments around. A conservative is implicitly advocating the maintenance of the present condition and its state of injustice and suffering, etc. A liberal is inconsistent -- claiming to advocate progress while opposing its concrete methods. Greens (of the "religious" sort) have simply made a god out of fate -- the naturalistic fallacy. 5) One specific thing you'll get is the Hitler comparison. Anyone who advocates going beyond the human condition in some deep or fundamental way gets compared to Hitler. In addition to pointing it out as dishonest hyperbole, it's important to point out that Hitlerian eugenics is the opposite of this. It's curing the disease by killing the patient... the very opposite of making the means of human betterment more universally available.
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  Frankly, I'm saving my Hitler and supervillain points for later. My hope is to have things firmly in hand by the time the press and public catch on and then be able to stand there going, "Even if you hit me with everything you've got, resistance is useless, useless, useless, completely and utterly and absolutely futile and useless!!!!" You can only pull off multiple exclamation points once in a lifetime. (Real answer: I'm a computer scientist, not a geneticist :-(.)