Genocide to Save Modernity. Can it be Justified?

[cronus]

Say you have a culture which is easily identified, a subgroup with a medieval mindset, who are seeking ways to subvert secular institutions and trying to indoctrinate the next generation in fallacious backwards ideas like creation over evolution but willing to go much further. Representing a clear threat to the whole idea of modernity. A present danger to the scientific and engineering foundations of human progress since the industrial revolution. And it is possible to identify this group, and this group is held in a diminishing light by the populace like they are Roman Catholics or Muslims or something else. Would you feel it a duty as a secular rationalist to discriminate, to even push for those ideas and policies which are the monster of a former time unleashed? And then either look the other way or operate as part of a prejudicial whispering campaign so they are pitchforked by the mob on the day the money runs scarce? The day these religious types are waiting for with their own agenda, by the way....

[Gallstones]

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Is there such a thing as modernity or aren't all points dots on a line that extends beyond the current point of view?

[cronus]

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Is there such a thing as modernity or aren't all points dots on a line that extends beyond the current point of view?

The invention of the steam engine and countless other labor saving devices gave folks more time to think. That this happened on a mass scale only relatively recently represent a step change in human society and how we develop as a species. For me modernity is very real, mostly because I live amongst the crumbling ruins of former times and so have evidence of the threat we all face, the decline and the fall of civilizations....do you think 'merica will ever get another space shuttle? or even manned space prog? once the Republicans win lucky?

[FBM]

Reification fallacy, dood.

[cronus]

Reification fallacy, dood.

The Hobbit was better as a book but airplanes depend on aerodynamics.

[Gallstones]

Is modernity a thing or a thing that happens?

[FBM]

Reification fallacy, dood.

The Hobbit was better as a book but airplanes depend on aerodynamics.

Oh! OK. We cool, then. I'm against genocide for any cause, though. I'd rather civilization go through another pre-industrial stage and try again.

[Cormac]

No genocide.

Mind you, they occur with depressing regularity.

[cronus]

You need to balance the suffering, the sheer human suffering, of a prolonged period of de-industrialisation, against a few million lives now. This is billions of lives against millions and like pushing the fat guy off the ledge onto the traintrack, in that well known moral thought experiment, only makes sense if you are strongly ethical and strongly logical.....you?

[Pappa]

Count me in bro!

http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=7728

Seriously though... no.

[Jason]

There are days when I think the erasure of the human species would not be unjustified. I'd lean towards no most of the time though. Close to 50/50.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Justify the desire to save modernity.

[charlou]

Justify the desire to save modernity.

hayeah.

[cronus]

I guess a holodeck in every home allowing all manner of dramas rather than a mud hut with a witchdoctor one channel future should do it for most, does for me. Consider the pron channels of the future?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I guess a holodeck in every home allowing all manner of dramas rather than a mud hut with a witchdoctor one channel future should do it for most, does for me. Consider the pron channels of the future?

So, genocide in the name of self-indulgence. Gotcha.