‘Genocide’ refers to intentions rather than consequences, but it seems to me just fine to have a National Native American Genocide Day to remind us that sometimes consequences should have been taken into consideration. Even if they weren’t, which of course is another question. A bit like Iraq.. (oops !! No Damn !!!! I didn’t mean to say that !!!). So let’s have a nice polite debate on the Instrumental Values and the Terminal Values in the Iraq war.. I’ve looked hard but not found any leaky generalisations in the area.....
Chris
Karma: 17
Eliezar, something of a ‘rant’ ? ‘the people who invented the Old Testament stories could make up pretty much anything they liked’.… overlooking that we’re talking about oral traditions committed to writing centuries later. Of course the domain covered by the books of the old testament covers law, social customs, and a whole bunch of stuff which is now the domain of other institutions. Of course ideas have moved on in most of those domains. I’d be more interested in reading your ideas about why the fears, insecurities, and identitiy issues so many of us face in an age of increasing change and complexity are leading to a ‘back to the 17thC’, ‘back to the womb’ type increase in clinging to both ‘believing’ and ‘believing in’ this particular dragon in the garage. This is not just a US phenomenon, we’re seeing it in the UK also. Derision won’t help, nor, most certainly, will logical argument.
mtc, you could make a few volumes of Dilbert your required reading, to inform your faith in the ‘sane corporation’. In fact, in such high powered company, I’m surprised to see non-qualified discussion of the intentionality of any organisation. Organisations don’t have intentionality, individuals do (perhaps… if we don’t let the Evolutionary Psychology crowd take it away from us..). As all Eliezer’s anecdotes illustrate, these get lost in the wash of large numbers and multiple levels, networks, and gridlocks, so we are left with the dross of the latest organisational mantra which everyone gives lip service to and no-one believes. It is trivial to observe that the dominant intentionalities will be those of the most powerful individuals, but these also are destined to be diluted and lost. However, my personal believe is that inadequate individuation (accepting cultural norms of need and intentionality) is a far bigger problem than such intentionality as we have getting lost. Let’s first work out who we are and what we have to say before worrying about our voice getting lost.
Forgive me for not picking up on the irony of including corporations and nanodevices in the same sentence. Eliezer is obviously correct in that corporations don’t evolve because they don’t replicate. A childish wish to gloat has to be held in check so as not to name and shame all those ‘child’ corporations whose DNA is specifically contrary to their parents’. The anti-wish list for nanodevices, on the other hand, is relevant and necessary. However, it is also entirely superfluous, as we all know, thanks to Dr Denning, that we are in a deterministic universe and that ‘Que sera, sera’. Sit back and enjoy the ride.