Monday, March 19, 2012

The Threat of "Human Engineering"

Now this is some scary stuff.

E.g. making humans smaller in order to combat climate change. Astonishing.

Egad, man. Independently of particular arguments, how can you not see the insanity of even contemplating going down this road? I mean, I'm willing to discuss the fine points as long as we start out by agreeing that this is an insane trajectory to even consider. By all means, we can discuss it as a purely theoretical question...but if you are seriously suggesting any of this as an actual policy proposal...then you are a truly frightening human being.

Apparently this is a protege of Peter Singer's...so that the trajectory ends in absurdity should not come as much of a surprise. That utilitarianism is still taken seriously is astonishing to me.

Look. We've overpopulated the planet, and the West has begun to live downright wastefully. If you start thinking things like "hey, let's make people tiny so that we can squeeze an extra couple of billion in!" instead of "whoa, time to have fewer kids"...well, it's time to stop and think hard about what the path you are headed down.

(h/t J. Carthensis)

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

It has been suggested that this is a case of "academic trolling."
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/03/14/human_engineering_for_climate_change_and_trolling_.html

4:54 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Thanks for the link, A.

I dunno, though...I wonder whether this is really a case where the authors said something really stupid and are now all like "Heh...just trollin'..."

6:17 PM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home