> [DMB] > > I'd echo what Krimel said. It seems pretty clear to me that Bo's > > attitude is "overtly anti-Semitic", a form of "cultural chauvinism one > > expects to hear from Platt and Ham". > > [Platt] > "Cultures can be graded and judged morally according to their contribution > to the evolution of life." (Lila, 24) > > [Krimel] > So let's imagine that during the Cold War an especially large flock of > geese attracted NORAD's attention and seeing them as incoming missiles we > launched our nukes on the Russians. They launched their on us. Now all of > the first world is smoke and ash and the only surviving humans are a > cannibal tribe in New Guinea. > > As they will hence forth be making the only contribution to the evolution > of life you and Pirsig would deem them morally superior? After all, we in > all our moral uprightness not only planned how to destroy life we would > have accomplished it.
[Platt] I guess your point is that we should have let the Russians develop the A- bomb so that we could now all be living under the beneficent, Christian- inspired system of communism. Or, would you have preferred the rule of imperial Japan? [Krimel] I hate to be the one to bring you up to speed on this but the Russians did get the bomb. It's all there in the scenario that you failed to address. This wasn't about us or the Russians it was about Pirsig's claim the cannibals in New Guinea should be judged the morally superior culture. I take it you agree with that. > [Krimel] > Should I forward this to Arlo? He's been waiting a long time for > something like this. > > But we don't even have to go that far. If cultures can be graded on > their contribution to the evolution of life shouldn't they be condemned > for driving species into extinction? Doesn't the death of an entire > species reduce future options, perhaps even the possibility of the > evolution of life? Who has killed off more species than we have? If this > is the criteria wouldn't the Muslims get a better grade on the Final > Exam than us? [Platt] Yes, killing those species of germs that might have killed us all was certainly a moral disaster. [Krimel] I seriously doubt if we have the capacity to render a species of microbes extinct. I was talking about something along the lines of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_animals_(USA) But it isn't just this list. It's any species that we have driven to extinction anywhere on the planet. Isn't the culture that kills them morally inferior according the definition YOU dredged out of Lila? Or are you saying you think Pirsig is wrong? Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
