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Old Mar 19, 2007, 12:44 pm   #3 (permalink) (top)
Jack
formerly Isherwood
 
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Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 14,186
Based on what ideal? What standard do you measure us against?

Unless you devise a means to give humans perfect foreknowledge, all our discoveries and inventions go through a phase where we try to figure out how best to use this new thing and what negative effects it may have. It may take us a while to uncover the potential uses and abuses. We are imperfect beings, incapable of producing perfection. In many contexts we aren't even agreed on what the perfect is.

What alternative can you suggest? Should we stop innovating? Should we all become Luddites? Electricity kills hundreds of people every month. Should we abandon electricity?

I would suggest we're not exactly a dumb-ass species, we're just not perfectly smart. We're fallible, we make mistakes, then we try harder the next time not to repeat our mistakes. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we don't. Regardless of how you perceive humanity, we're the only humanity we've got. If you desire perfection, you'll need to search elsewhere.


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