Lucien wrote:Moggy wrote:Lucien wrote:You mentioned there, though, that you would be ok with some extreme technology. I strongly disagree with the idea that its existence would be acceptable - its creation would be the most dangerous and decadent event in human history.
Why is it extreme technology? What is it about the tech that makes you think it is dangerous and decadent?
Let's say humans work towards a machine that can grant everlasting existence, perhaps in a virtual world. The potential now exists to create everlasting suffering.
Let's say that invention is so tightly regulated that only one person is ever put into a virtual Hell - you've still created eternal suffering. That is unacceptable, even the potential of it happening.
You are anti-guns I believe? If so that's presumably because people can get hurt or killed. Every bit of pain or death that has
ever happened on earth would not add up to one person suffering forever/a very large amount of time.
Talking of stories, this reminds me of "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas". My hope is the majority of people will act like the minority in that short story.
I don't know the short story so can't comment on that.
The rest of it seems like you are blaming the tech for human faults. While the
potential is there for one (or more) people to be put in everlasting hell, the
potential is also there to plug everyone in and stop all suffering for every single human as everyone (by choice!) lives in a utopia that brings them eternal joy.
Guns are an interesting one and you would be right that I am quite anti-gun. Guns were invented for one purpose those, to kill. VR tech wouldn't be invented on the basis that we could make somebody suffer for eternity. That's quite a big difference.
Also, I am not anti sport shooting (in the Olympics for instance) nor am I even anti gun club (as long as they are regulated properly) where people go to shoot at targets in a safe environment. It is not the existence of guns I disagree with, it is the use of guns to kill that I disagree with. That's how I would see VR tech as well, we would need to make sure that the police don't force a copy of a murderer to spend millions of years in a small cabin listening to Wizard over and over again.