Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Re: TransColloquium Meeting: Dealing with New Pope'sCampaign

From: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 13:53:08 -0400

Ahem. 

I think that Amara's post was an assumption that you are following for a 
good cause, but it is not what the ExI meeting is about. 

This is not a meeting about "moral relativism." 

This is a meeting "Dealing with New Pope's Campaign" and the reverberations 
that could follow, i.e., life-extension biotechnologies.   Also, I'm
wondering why no one picked up on the "cultural wars."

Toward progress! 

Natasha 

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 09:34:05 -0700
To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: TransColloquium Meeting: Dealing	with
New	Pope'sCampaign

Hughes, James J. wrote:
>> until his 'moral relativism' idea is given as the official Church
>> doctrine, I think that the Extropy Institute should not assume too much
>> (yet) about what are the new Church policies.
> 
> Also, among all the things that Cardinal Ratzinger has opposed over the 
> years, and seems likely to oppose as Pope, "moral relativism" is close to
> the bottom of the list of things I think we should be jumping to the 
> defense of.
> 
> Yes, we believe in moral complexity, tolerance, acknowledgment that there
> are no moral absolutes, and that morals are the product of human reason
and
> feeling. But I'm not a defender of "moral relativism."

We believe?  Speak for yourself - in matters of belief, always.  I believe
in 
moral complexity, intolerance, acknowledgment that moral absolutes can vary 
from mind to mind, and that morals are the product of human reason and 
feeling.  I am an opponent of moral relativism.  I don't say "we" about any
of 
that and that's the main problem with trying to articulate a transhumanist 
position on it.

> What I think we should be focusing on is Benedict's likely focus on 
> bioethics:
> 
>
http://cyborgdemocracy.net/2005/04/ratzinger-on-genetic-enhancement-and.html

Agreed.  From my perspective moral relativism is a complex philosophical 
confusion, something that needs to be explained more than fought.  But to 
fight for moral relativism is a very hard-to-defend ground on which to
stake 
one's battlefield, leaving aside that it's not worth defending.  Some
people 
analyze that moral relativism helped kill off the Democratic party in the
US, 
and they may well be right.  See also "Higher Superstition".  How do you
rally 
people to fight for the idea that nothing is worth fighting for?  It may
make 
a fine way to smile down at the philosophically unsophisticated from the 
coffeehouse, but it doesn't call a people to arms.

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
[email-masked]
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat

--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .

_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
[email-masked]
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat

---

From: Dirk Bruere <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 19:04:51 +0100

>wondering why no one picked up on the "cultural wars."
Well, this may seem rather obvious, but why not get a delegation 
together to actually talk to some senior people in the RC Church who are 
close to the new pope?

-- 
Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millenium
http://www.theconsensus.org

-- 
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.10.3 - Release Date: 25/04/2005