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How "future-proof" are your views? (thread comes with a bonus quiz!)
Shanadeus
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Here's the free quiz I made just for you:
Click
If you've taken my quiz now you probably know what this thread is about, how long it will take before you're looked at the same way we look at homophobes nowadays - basically how "future-proof" your beliefs are.
If you've been exposed to a lot of science-fiction then chances are that you're going to be a bit more future-proof when it comes to the more predictable things that we've basically grown up with through the books and movies on the subject.
While sci-fi might try to make us more apprehensive when it comes to robots (Frankenstein-complex etc) and super humans (gattaca and similar) we at least gain some sense of familiarity with the subject that I believe removes some to a lot of the uncertainty and fears that many people experience today when it comes to homosexuality - which in turns fuel their disapproval of it.
Now in the quiz I made I did a little random time line where these big potential issues are shown to pop up sequentially and where the approval of one means the approval of the ones before for simplicity's sake. This isn't necessarily the case as one might very well be against polyamory for an example because one believe it's harmful for the children yet be for inter-species marriages, I've also yet to meet any racist people that approve of homosexuality which I believe would be an appropriate modern day analogy to these two future topics - many argued against interracial relationships with the same fear for the children ("think of the children who will grow up with no proper racial identity").
So let's debate and/or discourse on this (and feel free to post the results you got in the quiz).
Click
If you've taken my quiz now you probably know what this thread is about, how long it will take before you're looked at the same way we look at homophobes nowadays - basically how "future-proof" your beliefs are.
If you've been exposed to a lot of science-fiction then chances are that you're going to be a bit more future-proof when it comes to the more predictable things that we've basically grown up with through the books and movies on the subject.
While sci-fi might try to make us more apprehensive when it comes to robots (Frankenstein-complex etc) and super humans (gattaca and similar) we at least gain some sense of familiarity with the subject that I believe removes some to a lot of the uncertainty and fears that many people experience today when it comes to homosexuality - which in turns fuel their disapproval of it.
Now in the quiz I made I did a little random time line where these big potential issues are shown to pop up sequentially and where the approval of one means the approval of the ones before for simplicity's sake. This isn't necessarily the case as one might very well be against polyamory for an example because one believe it's harmful for the children yet be for inter-species marriages, I've also yet to meet any racist people that approve of homosexuality which I believe would be an appropriate modern day analogy to these two future topics - many argued against interracial relationships with the same fear for the children ("think of the children who will grow up with no proper racial identity").
So let's debate and/or discourse on this (and feel free to post the results you got in the quiz).
Shanadeus on
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Posts
Honestly, it's tough to say what will happen and when. True rampant AI may never exist, we may have no luck increasing the intelligence of animals. Human augmentation may be incredibly difficult to achieve.
Anyway, the point isn't when these things will happen but how we will approach them whenever they appear.
Someone who grew up when slavery was generally accepted was more likely to be against interracial relations and not be that willing of acknowledging blacks as equal beings - but there were still a select few who had future-proof views that they didn't need to change as blacks were freed from slavery and later on given equal rights.
I know that it's very speculative but I'm sure that people in the past had some inkling of blacks and homosexuals in the future being granted equal rights so we can do the same sort of speculation now as well for our future.
Does that mean that in 2021 we'll be able to marry many same-sex highly intelligent mechanical animals at the same time?
Woot!
Also, "It`s wrong to change the nature of man" is one of the vaguest questions I can think of.
Inquiring minds must know!
There have been gay folks for pretty much always. There have been different races for pretty much always (more or less). Gays and non-dominant races are just instances of people who exhibit superficial traits or engage in past times that are different from the norm, but they're still people doing nothing to harm everybody.
Most people on these boards agree that discriminating against these people is bad, because they're people and they're harming nobody. But now you take that and extrapolate to a human marrying some Super Dog that has human intelligence, and the implication of your quiz is that you're narrow-minded if you don't think this is totally awesome, because that's where society will head someday.
But we don't know jack about Super Dog. Are we talking about some dog that can speak in human language and is just as intelligent as a person and can breed with humans to create some ManDog hybrid that is also fully intelligent? Or are we talking Lassie with a couple extra IQ points? Or something in between? Because all that is kinda relevant.
The only way to really interpret your "quiz" is to assume that all these various classes of human-like entities are pretty much emotionally and intellectually identical to a human being, at which point it's one step short of tautological. Sure, human intellects should be allowed to marry/whatever with human intellects if such unions don't appreciably harm anyone. Whooo, profundity.
Yeah, the quiz is just a sampler of what the thread is about.
It doesn't necessarily have to follow the linear development of:
[Sociological change] -> [Human biological change] -> [Non-human biological change] -> [Non-human artificial change]
but the quiz format was a bit limited so I had to simplify things.
Who knows, maybe polyamorous relationships will become a big thing like homosexual relationships are today after the public have accepted AI's as persons.
The point is anyway that when for an example polyamorous marriages become a hotly debated topic you might be acting the same way someone against homosexual marriages is acting today.
Half man. Half bear. Half pig.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
ALL COP!
Why I fear the ocean.
TBH, when I read that, I really wish the answer to that was something about a miserable pile of secrets.
Stop being so backwards.
Good point though.
Only death can change the nature of man.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I oppose poly marriage, actually.
Which amuses me to no end, because I end up being the polyamorous guy arguing against poly marriage, versus a bunch of monogamous people arguing for it.
:rotate:
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
A bad economic depression, a serious world war and/or some type of natural disaster might very well change the societal status of homosexuals, women, minorities and so on. We only recently (in a historic sense) eliminated slavery in the Western world, for example, but it's not impossible to see a future where the institution is revived.
Similarly, women's rights are, in a lot of ways, a luxury that we can afford due to our economic prosperity and lack of real outside threats. But if some sort of societal calamity occurred where law and order broke down significantly, you'd see a serious regression in women's rights (look at places like Somalia and Afghanistan, where women are limited in their freedom due to a number of reasons, including safety).
As for homosexual rights, it's only due to the decline of the influence of religion that we're seeing this development. Imagine a scenario where Islam becomes the dominant religion in France or Sweden. What do you think would happen to gay rights then?
Rigorous Scholarship
Well that and what ever it was that happened to Doctor Manhatten.
I largely agree with this post, although even Islam's attitudes towards gays isn't necessarily one of active violent persecution - it is in most theocratic Islamic countries right now, but historically at different points in time it was quietly tolerated. Ultimately, though, that bolsters your point, that civil rights do not necessarily progress from less to more linearly over time.
And you're also right that there tends to be a positive relationship between natural resources and sexual stratification; and an inverse relationship between violent conflict and sexual stratification. It doesn't hold true across all times and places, but it's a recognized pattern.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
If someone wants to mary a horse or a Chessmaster robot, who am I to get in the way?
"Animals should never be able to marry humans no matter how intelligent they are"
I don't think you can accurately predict the outcome of this. It is my position that an animal does not have the intelligence to give consent, and that relationships where one person is of vastly different intelligence to another is unhealthy. Are we talking about animals who are so smart they teach Physics and calculus at our college? If so, there are a lot of more important moral questions that take place between then and now. Like is it moral to engineer a species to have that kind of intelligence.
"Artificial intelligences should no matter the circumstance not count as a real person"
as long as it is artificial intelligence the answer should be agree. Real intelligence is another matter entirely.
Of course, this would depend entirely on the consequences of the uplifting technology and the circumstances of the milieu in which the uplifting occurs.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I always have a weird time with those conversations. For two reasons: the first being that nobody can ever decide how poly marriage would actually work (since it isn't possible to just analogise to an existing social structure, like with gay marriage), and the second being that it doesn't seem to be a thing that anyone actually wants, or at least cares enough about to do something about it.
Man, talk about the hazards of an unclear antecedent. I thought "they" was referring to the humans. Like, if you're smart enough it's cool if you marry a sheep. Which I was down with, because I'm a pretty smart guy and I like to keep my options open.
He's called Robert Heinlein, he wrote on the subject occasionally. There is also some informative wikipedia articles. There was a book called Stranger in a Strange land, it rather shocked a lot of the world some decades back.
But just as there is something to gain from answering the trolley problem I believe that there is something to gain from answering what things you would support and oppose - and of course from discussing them.
It also told me I hated gays when I finished the survey, even though in the survey I said that I in fact do not hate gays.
I realise that reasonable suggestions for how it could work exist, however in any internet discussion of the issue you will rarely find that any two participants are talking about the same one. Even (perhaps especially) if they are directly arguing with each other.
That's cool - I'd been wondering if it was possible to make the Warlord Hypothetical any stupider.
I think an in-depth discussion of any of the sub-issues in the OP's quiz would be more informative than the sort of general "Are you an Open-Minded enough dude to save the president?" thing we have here.
Oh man the homophobia runs deep in this one.
While I certainly agree that regression and stagnation in history show that clear linear progress isn't a given I also think it's a bit easy to claim that overall progress isn't real.
Yes, societies can regress (sometimes even astonishingly fast and big like Afghanistan) but at the same time I'd say that things have always become better than they used to be. The fact that the car breaks down or we have to take a backtrack does not mean that we're not getting closer to where we're driving.
The problem is not that you can't think of a structure where poly marriage works, it's that it's hard as fuck to think of a good way for how it would work in our society as it is.
Is this a stealth furry-acceptance thread?
Ain't no stealth involved.
You have to start with at least 12 months of hormone therapy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Oh yeah in that case its totally wrong.
Wrong to chop off a dude's wang.
might as well tell a guy he can't hang out with his best friend.
Progress and civilization are fragile things. You can easily lose 500 years of progress in a few short years.
And keep in mind that the development of liberal democracy in the West is due to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, neither of which was ever a sure thing. If Genghis Khan hadn't dropped dead when he did, the Mongols might well have swept into Western Europe and killed the seeds of the modern era in its crib. Look at the difference between Russia's development and that of Western Europe. Now imagine the Golden Horde had conquered all of Europe. Do you think we'd be living in free and democratic societies today?
My point is that what we have in the West today in terms of freedom, democracy and Enlightenment-era values, is a historical exception to the human condition.
Rigorous Scholarship
I think it's making a deal for immortality with Ravel Puzzlewell.
Why I fear the ocean.
I am against chopped off wangs.
:v:
3DS FC: 5343-7720-0490
Well of course you are son
/claps on back
That's because you're a real American