I often worry that I'm morally compromised. Nuclear weapons are, I think, analogous to human germline engineering. On the one hand, it *seems* rightly taboo. But on the other hand, we all *know* someone, somewhere, sometime, will be less inclined to consider the consequences of their actions ... or, as in the case of He Jiankui <https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614762/crispr-baby-twins-lulu-and-nana-what-happened/>, the consequences might be considered, but not thoroughly enough.
I have the same morally suspect reaction to de-platforming. On the one hand, anyone who would *want* to attend, say, a talk by Steve Bannon, seems like an idiot or a jerk to me. But should his views be taboo? Ultimately, I end up subscribing to context. Other good examples are psyops, cracking (white hat vs black hat), primate laboratories, antifa and the use of violence for political ends, etc. Black and white artificial discretization isn't very helpful. It's the particulars of any given question, in context, that matters. Nuclear weapons work *does* belong on the planet, if for no other reason than to stay ahead of the implicit threat of its misuse. On 1/13/20 8:36 PM, Merle Lefkoff wrote: > Nuclear weapons work--and Lanl is a nuclear weapons laboratory-- whether > research or training or administration doesn't belong anywhere on the planet. -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
