On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 6:39 PM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > On 12/28/2015 2:53 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: > > > > On Sun, Dec 27, 2015 at 7:01 PM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> >> >> On 12/27/2015 3:56 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >> >> >> >> On Sun, Dec 27, 2015 at 7:04 AM, Brent Meeker < <[email protected]> >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> On 12/23/2015 1:12 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 6:31 PM, John Clark < <[email protected]> >>> [email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 Telmo Menezes < <[email protected]> >>>> [email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>> > >>>>>>> >> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> and their land is not your land. >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >> >>>>>> I do not have the same faith in the divine right of inherited wealth >>>>>> as you do. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> > >>>>> Nice dodge. Yes, let's put all in the same bag, Wall Street trust fund >>>>> kids and remote tribes wanting to keep living their way in *the place they >>>>> were born in*. >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> I'm not a big fan of >>>> >>>> Wall Street trust fund kids >>>> >>>> either, and if one of them owned one of the 3 places on the planet >>>> where a thirty meter telescope could be built and refused to let it be used >>>> for that purpose I would be in favor of using the law of eminent domain to >>>> force the brat to sell it. And by the way, no native Hawaiian or anybody >>>> else was ever born atop Mauna Kea, there is nothing living up there except >>>> for a few astronomers, and if native Hawaiians >>>> >>>> get there way soon there won't even be that, they want to remove all >>>> telescopes from the mountain including the world class ones that have been >>>> there for decades. Why do you defend these people? >>>> >>> >>> I don't defend them. I think they should not interfere with the >>> construction of the telescope. All I am saying is that ramming things down >>> people's throats isn't working out so well. I am suggesting that something >>> like the "prime directive" is probably a good idea. It would be nice to put >>> a telescope in a certain mountain, but it's not our mountain, so tough shit. >>> >>> >>> ?? Why isn't it our mountain? The Hawaiians didn't create it. The >>> ownership of land is a concept invented and enforced by the U.S. and >>> Hawaiian state government. There's no ownership of land apart from the >>> society that enforces it. In this case the state of Hawaii owns the land >>> and they approved the use of the land for astronomy. >>> >> >> This is the usual confusion between lawful and ethical. >> The desire and need to have some control over one's environment already >> existed in biological species much more ancient than the Homo Sapeins. >> >> >> But among social animals it was joint ownership...which is exactly the >> kind of ownership the government exercises over. The Hawaiians are like a >> small fraction of the tribe who wants to have exclusive control of a part >> of the joint territory because they have supernatural myths they tell about >> it. >> > > Suppose that centuries from now we are capable of traveling to inhabited > planets in other star systems. We come across a planet populated by > humanoids who are roughly in the middle ages. They are terribly afraid of > us and regard us as the demons of some ancient prophecy of their religion. > Do we see them as part of our tribe, take over the planet and impose our > values and technology for the greater good? Or do we try to remain > benevolently distant until they are ready? And if we chose the first, isn't > it true that they were right to consider us demons to being with? > > > The ethical choice is number one. And the answer is no. > In fact, I have another ethical dilemma for you. The EU considers the death penalty to be a barbaric and uncivilized practice. A country can only join the EU if it rejects capital punishment, and the world wide abolition of the death penalty is a stated goal of the EU. Should the EU attempt to use its military power to subjugate the USA, as to abolish the death penalty and move civilization forward? > > This is not so different from the situation native Hawaiians found > themselves in when the Europeans arrived. > > > Or when the Spaniards arrived in Mexico. Do you suggest that the > Spaniards should have just waited until the Aztecs "were ready" to stop > sacrificing slaves everyday to make the sun rise? Do you think they > should have waited until the tribes subjugated by the Aztecs "were ready" > to stop providing sacrifices? > > Brent > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
