On Sun, Dec 18, 2022 at 12:53 PM spudboy100 via Everything List < everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:
> We shall see about hypersonic weapons, just know that Joey is responding > in kind. > > Yes, you and the Christians are opposed to my Brave New World approach to > birthing. It is however a way up from abortion and if we are going to be a > more, ethical species, this would be a huge step. It will sell, but its not > being offered by progressives, nor, conservatives, because of their > dedication to ideology. > It's only more ethical if you think an organism completely lacking a functioning brain can still have human-like moral worth merely by virtue of having human DNA--the neurons in the cortex of a fetus are mostly lacking in synapses until around the end of the second trimester, and no coherent brain waves are seen until then. Seems hard to justify that stance if one doesn't believe in a "soul", or in any kind of essentialistic notion that "human organism" is a natural kind (in the philosophical sense of a totally objective division in reality of the kind discussed at https://iep.utm.edu/nat-kind/ ) so that mindless zygotes/fetuses are objectively "human organisms" while other cases, like a sperm cell approaching an egg cell or a collection of human stem cells kept alive in a petri dish, are not "human organisms". If one wants to have some kind of ethical system that can easily adapt to a possible transhuman future, the idea that a human has a higher moral status than say a fish can't be rooted specifically in human DNA, not if one wants to say that an AI or genetically engineered animal could also potentially have the same higher moral value--it would have to be rooted in something more abstract, like some broad characterization of mental abilities or form of consciousness. But any such abstract characterization of what gives an entity special moral worth is probably not going to include fetuses before the onset of higher brain function. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> > To: 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everything-list@googlegroups.com> > Sent: Sun, Dec 18, 2022 6:39 am > Subject: Death, science, and politics > > On Sat, Dec 17, 2022 at 9:10 PM <spudboy...@aol.com> wrote: > > *> Hypersonics only do 13.5 KPH. However, their trick is swerving in mid > air to avoid being hit by incoming anti-missiles.* > > > I have three comments on that: > > 1) The US does not have a viable defense against ICBMs, it didn't have one > 60 years ago when ICBMs first came online and it doesn't have one today. > And neither does Russia. And neither does China. And neither does anybody > else. And nobody is likely to develop one in the foreseeable future. > > 2) Just one modern ICBM can contain hundreds of decoys and a dozen nuclear > reentry warheads, each many times more powerful than the bomb that > destroyed Hiroshima, and can be individually maneuvered and reach a dozen > cities hundreds of miles apart with pinpoint accuracy. > > 3) You say you hate Russia but you uncritically believe all the hype they > spew out. The Russians fire a few hypersonic missiles into Ukraine and > claim it is a world beating weapon, but it turns out to have an > insignificant effect on the war. The Russians claimed they had a powerful > all conquering army, but it turned out to be powerful on paper only because > it had incompetent commanders leading untrained poorly equipped soldiers > who had bottom of the birdcage morale and were communicating with > unencrypted commercial cell phones and we're fighting with obsolete > weapons, some from the 1940s. > > *> To grease your skids, JC, I will push (along with others) making > abortion less attractive then building artificial wombs! Thus retaining the > Christian voter and promoting a new moral answer for humankind. * > > > Christian voters were very upset when the first so-called "test tube baby" > was born by in vitro fertilization, today many think even condoms are an > unnatural abomination and should be banned; so I really don't think > Christians are going to be thrilled by artificial wombs. And it would take > years and billions of dollars to develop artificial wombs, but historically > Republicans have been reluctant to spend money on scientific research or > spend money on anything except for devices that can kill people that the > military or the man in the street can use. And I'm not sure Republicans > would be happy about spending many trillions of tax dollars to care for > millions of unwanted and unloved children for 18 years. But I am sure that > Republicans will blame the Democrats for the huge increase in street crime > that spikes 18 years after your lunatic plan takes effect. > > John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis > <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis> > vdy > > > > > > > -- > 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv17MjLRDCek6M%3DDF0UHvwKr7dnqgK-PJRFmBkD65QkPDg%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv17MjLRDCek6M%3DDF0UHvwKr7dnqgK-PJRFmBkD65QkPDg%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > > -- > 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/151154478.850912.1671385979431%40mail.yahoo.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/151154478.850912.1671385979431%40mail.yahoo.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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