Imagine that some technologically advanced civilization arrived on Earth … Imagine they said: “The most important thing is to preserve the ecosystem in its natural splendor. In particular, the predator populations must be preserved: the psychopath killers, the fascist goons, the despotic death squads … What a tragedy if this rich natural diversity were replaced with a monoculture of healthy, happy, well-fed people living in peace and harmony.” … this would be appallingly callous.
I have some sympathy with that technologically advanced civilisation. I mean, what would you rather they do? Intervene to remould humans into their preferred form? Or only if their preferred form just happened to agree with yours?
I would go further, and say that replacing human civilization with “a monoculture of healthy, happy, well-fed people living in peace and harmony” does in fact sound very bad. Never mind these aliens (who cares what they think?); from our perspective, this seems like a bad outcome. Not by any means the worst imaginable outcome… but still bad.
Doing nothing might be preferable to intervening in that case. But I’m not sure if the advanced civilization in Bostrom’s scenario is intervening or merely opining. I would hope the latter.
If they’re merely opining, then why should we be appalled? Why would we even care? Let them opine to one another; it doesn’t affect us.
If they’re intervening (without our consent), then obviously this is a violation of our sovereignty and we should treat it as an act of war.
In any case, one “preserves” what one owns. These hypothetical advanced aliens are speaking as if they own us and our planet. This is obviously unacceptable as far as we’re concerned, and it would behoove us in this case to disabuse these aliens of such a notion at our earliest convenience.
Conversely, it makes perfect sense to speak of humans as collectively owning the natural resources of the Earth, including all the animals and so on. As such, wishing to preserve some aspects of it is entirely reasonable. (Whether we ultimately choose to do so is another question—but that it’s a question for us to answer, according to our preferences, is clear enough.)
This is a major theme in Star Trek: The Next Generation, where they refer to it as the Prime Directive. It always bothered me when they violated the Prime Directive and intervened because it seemed like it was an act of moral imperialism. But I guess that’s just my morals (an objection to moral imperialism) conflicting with theirs.
A human monoculture seems bad for many reasons analogous to the ones that make an agricultural monoculture bad, though. Cultural diversity and heterogeneity should make our species more innovative and more robust to potential future threats. A culturally heterogeneous world would also seem harder for a central entity to gain control of. Isn’t this largely why the British, Spanish, and Roman empires declined?
OP quoting Bostrom:
I have some sympathy with that technologically advanced civilisation. I mean, what would you rather they do? Intervene to remould humans into their preferred form? Or only if their preferred form just happened to agree with yours?
I would go further, and say that replacing human civilization with “a monoculture of healthy, happy, well-fed people living in peace and harmony” does in fact sound very bad. Never mind these aliens (who cares what they think?); from our perspective, this seems like a bad outcome. Not by any means the worst imaginable outcome… but still bad.
Doing nothing might be preferable to intervening in that case. But I’m not sure if the advanced civilization in Bostrom’s scenario is intervening or merely opining. I would hope the latter.
If they’re merely opining, then why should we be appalled? Why would we even care? Let them opine to one another; it doesn’t affect us.
If they’re intervening (without our consent), then obviously this is a violation of our sovereignty and we should treat it as an act of war.
In any case, one “preserves” what one owns. These hypothetical advanced aliens are speaking as if they own us and our planet. This is obviously unacceptable as far as we’re concerned, and it would behoove us in this case to disabuse these aliens of such a notion at our earliest convenience.
Conversely, it makes perfect sense to speak of humans as collectively owning the natural resources of the Earth, including all the animals and so on. As such, wishing to preserve some aspects of it is entirely reasonable. (Whether we ultimately choose to do so is another question—but that it’s a question for us to answer, according to our preferences, is clear enough.)
This is a major theme in Star Trek: The Next Generation, where they refer to it as the Prime Directive. It always bothered me when they violated the Prime Directive and intervened because it seemed like it was an act of moral imperialism. But I guess that’s just my morals (an objection to moral imperialism) conflicting with theirs.
A human monoculture seems bad for many reasons analogous to the ones that make an agricultural monoculture bad, though. Cultural diversity and heterogeneity should make our species more innovative and more robust to potential future threats. A culturally heterogeneous world would also seem harder for a central entity to gain control of. Isn’t this largely why the British, Spanish, and Roman empires declined?