So, just to echo this back to make sure I understand… your position is that if I effectively intervene in a culture to provide technology (such that they actually have it), this means I am also providing a certain level of ongoing maintenance and support of that technology, which in turn necessarily means I’m enveloping that culture in my own until such time as it becomes essentially a copy of mine, which is at best not ethically neutral and might result in suffering, and might even result in net suffering, although then again it might not.
Yes?
If so, OK… thanks for clarifying.
For my own part, while I certainly agree that this sort of thing can happen, and some technologies lean that way more than others, I also suspect that there’s a nontrivial excluded middle between “don’t provide technology at all” and “essentially envelop an inferior culture in your own.”
For example, I think trade relations often exist in that middle ground.
(It’s actually a bit worse than that: ”… becomes essentially a copy of mine” is often more like ”… becomes a distorted copy of mine, without the counterbalancing influences that result from gradual acceptance of, and adaptation to, the new technologies and cultural practices which I am now dumping on the client culture all at once”. But the core point is the same.)
I agree that there might be an excluded middle. I am skeptical of any claim that it’s common, though. Truly equitable, consensual (in a democratic sense) trade relations between grossly technologically unequal societies seem to be rare at best. Trade relations as a middle ground between the two extremes we’re discussing occur, I think, between societies that are not as different, in technological and social development.
For the most part, the historical examples of relations between “grossly technologically unequal societies” I can think of were deliberately exploitative.
So, no, no examples of “truly equitable, consensual (in a democratic sense) trade relations” between such societies come to mind.
For that matter, no examples of failed attempts at such relations that just end up causing net suffering despite the sincere best efforts of the principals involved come to mind, either.
It’s only very recently, historically speaking, that the balance between helping a less advanced culture and exploiting a less advanced culture has been so tilted in the direction of helping. (Except for meme plagues that come packaged with a message of “spreading this meme constitutes help”, which we’ve always had, and which often end up as exploitation anyway.).
So you’re not going to see either many successful attempts at advancing the other culture, or many failed attempts—until now, there haven’t been attempts at all.
So, just to echo this back to make sure I understand… your position is that if I effectively intervene in a culture to provide technology (such that they actually have it), this means I am also providing a certain level of ongoing maintenance and support of that technology, which in turn necessarily means I’m enveloping that culture in my own until such time as it becomes essentially a copy of mine, which is at best not ethically neutral and might result in suffering, and might even result in net suffering, although then again it might not.
Yes?
If so, OK… thanks for clarifying.
For my own part, while I certainly agree that this sort of thing can happen, and some technologies lean that way more than others, I also suspect that there’s a nontrivial excluded middle between “don’t provide technology at all” and “essentially envelop an inferior culture in your own.”
For example, I think trade relations often exist in that middle ground.
That is a reasonable summary of my position, yes.
(It’s actually a bit worse than that: ”… becomes essentially a copy of mine” is often more like ”… becomes a distorted copy of mine, without the counterbalancing influences that result from gradual acceptance of, and adaptation to, the new technologies and cultural practices which I am now dumping on the client culture all at once”. But the core point is the same.)
I agree that there might be an excluded middle. I am skeptical of any claim that it’s common, though. Truly equitable, consensual (in a democratic sense) trade relations between grossly technologically unequal societies seem to be rare at best. Trade relations as a middle ground between the two extremes we’re discussing occur, I think, between societies that are not as different, in technological and social development.
Are there examples you can think of?
For the most part, the historical examples of relations between “grossly technologically unequal societies” I can think of were deliberately exploitative.
So, no, no examples of “truly equitable, consensual (in a democratic sense) trade relations” between such societies come to mind.
For that matter, no examples of failed attempts at such relations that just end up causing net suffering despite the sincere best efforts of the principals involved come to mind, either.
Not that I’m any kind of expert.
It’s only very recently, historically speaking, that the balance between helping a less advanced culture and exploiting a less advanced culture has been so tilted in the direction of helping. (Except for meme plagues that come packaged with a message of “spreading this meme constitutes help”, which we’ve always had, and which often end up as exploitation anyway.).
So you’re not going to see either many successful attempts at advancing the other culture, or many failed attempts—until now, there haven’t been attempts at all.