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Category: ethics – Page 46

Should Free Internet Be a Basic Human Right? There’s a Strong Case For It

You might take it for granted that you can load up Twitter or browse through Reddit whenever you like, but around half of the 7.7 billion people living on the planet right now aren’t yet able to get online.

And that’s a big problem, according to one researcher. Merten Reglitz, a philosopher and global ethics lecturer from the University of Birmingham in the UK says internet access should be established as a basic human right that everyone is entitled to.

“Internet access is a unique and non-substitutable way for realising fundamental human rights such as free speech and assembly,” he writes in a new paper.

David Pearce — Foundational Values for the Future — What is God’s Utility Function?

“What foundational values need to be in place for an ethical utilitronium shockwave?”

What foundational values need to be in place for an ethical utilitronium shockwave?
We discuss:
- (following on from a previous video) more on Nozick’s experience machines (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxBvNbuYud0).
- given that in each age there has been different conceptions of utopia, what would utopia be for a post-human superintelligence?
- classical utilitarian vs negative utilitarian approaches to the long term good of life in the universe.
- whether a perfect decision theory would be equal to negative utilitarianism.
- how much attention should we give to preferences in improving well-being beyond eliminating suffering?
- if one does believe in the objectivity of value should we be concerned about being damned in a local maximum of well-being?
- what is God’s utility function?

https://youtu.be/0uKNVVVdqrI #ethics #utilitarianism #futurology

Filmed inside the Melbourne Museum in Victoria, Australia.

David Pearce is interested in the use of biotechnology to abolish suffering throughout the living world: http://abolitionist.com

Continue reading “David Pearce — Foundational Values for the Future — What is God’s Utility Function?” | >

David Pearce — Experience Machines and Hedonic Treadmills

“…consider Robert Nozick’s thought-experiment in conjunction with Felipe De Brigard’s inverse experience machine argument: “If you like it, does it matter if it’s real?”

Does Nozick’s experience machine prove anything?

Perhaps consider Robert Nozick’s thought-experiment in conjunction with Felipe De Brigard’s inverse experience machine argument: “If you like it, does it matter if it’s real?”

For sure, many subjects say they wouldn’t plug into Nozick’s Experience Machine; but conversely, many of these same respondents claim they wouldn’t want to unplug from an Experience Machine if told their existing lives were based on a lie. In short, maybe what is really being measured is not simply our (lack of) commitment to hedonism or realism, but rather status quo bias.

Even self-avowed classical utilitarians may balk on realising what their own ethics entails.

Continue reading “David Pearce — Experience Machines and Hedonic Treadmills” | >

The Ouroboros Code: Bridging Advanced Science and Transcendental Metaphysics

By contemplating the full spectrum of scenarios of the coming technological singularity many can place their bets in favor of the Cybernetic Singularity which is a sure path to digital immortality and godhood as opposed to the AI Singularity when Homo sapiens is retired as a senescent parent. This meta-system transition from the networked Global Brain to the Gaian Mind is all about evolution of our own individual minds, it’s all about our own Self-Transcendence. https://www.ecstadelic.net/top-stories/the-ouroboros-code-br…etaphysics #OuroborosCode

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The ‘unbelievable journey’ of CRISPR, now on Netflix

Mankind’s ability to edit the fabric of human life has led to scientific upheaval, global debate, and at least one international incident. Now, it’s coming to Netflix.

“Unnatural Selection,” a four-part docuseries debuting Friday, dissects the stories, science, and ethics behind genome editing, following academics, biohackers, and patients as they move through a brave new world made possible by technologies like CRISPR.

We recently spoke with co-directors Joe Egender and Leeor Kaufman about how the series came to be and how it frames the sprawling story of human genetic engineering. This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

We need robots to have morals. Could Shakespeare and Austen help?

John Mullan, professor of English literature at University College London, wrote an article on The Guardian titled “We need robots to have morals. Could Shakespeare and Austen help?”.

Using great literature to teach ethics to machines is a dangerous game. The classics are a moral minefield.

When he wrote the stories in I, Robot in the 1940s, Isaac Asimov imagined a world in which robots do all humanity’s tedious or unpleasant jobs for them, but where their powers have to be restrained. They are programmed to obey three laws. A robot may not injure another human being, even through inaction; a robot must obey a human being (except to contradict the previous law); a robot must protect itself (unless this contradicts either of the previous laws).

The Brave New World of Sports

I’m excited to share my new article for The New York Times on the brave new world of #cyborg ability and coming #transhumanism sports:

I wonder whether the sporting industry might create some new competitions where — just like technology — performance-enhancing drugs are encouraged. Innovations like the new oxygen-infused injection, which might one day allow humans to hold their breath for 15 to 30 minutes, could allow competitive free divers to reach new depths, showing just how far the human body can go.

Critics will complain that the human body was not designed to compete using enhancements and that it violates the code given to us by the ancient Greeks and their first Olympics Games, where “arête,” or excellence and moral virtue, was cherished. As a longtime competitive athlete, I appreciate the sportsmanship angle; but I also think that in the 21st century we can develop both the drugs and the technology to see humans compete in new sporting events that are even more exciting than their predecessors.

It’s hard to imagine the public wouldn’t want to see swimmers with fingers surgically webbed together to act like paddles, or weight lifters using short-lasting adrenaline shots, or 150-mile-per-hour baseball pitches thrown from bionic limbs.

Drugs and performance-enhancing technology would not have to challenge any existing sporting competitions and their cultures. It would simply be a new category of sports with different athletes. And like the Cybathlon, these types of competition do more than just entertain — they lead the way forward for the medical and transhumanist industries seeking to improve the human being. Competitions would be pilgrimages for medical professionals and entrepreneurs looking to buy and possibly mass produce the latest unique technologies.

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