Quote:
Originally Posted by jamesqf
I beg to differ. Ever know anyone with smallpox, or polio? This is what life was like in the old, old, days: Voltaire, "Letters on the English".
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I'm not disagreeing with this. I'm questioning why we're fighting wars against human beings when we could declare wholesale war on pathogens like AIDS and influenza and malaria, and throw equal effort at stamping out the causes of war like resource shortages and cultural inequality, so that both combat and the taking of non-combatant life ceases to be a concept in its entirety. I stopped fighting with my sister when she and I stopped being children. Now, despite being different from each other and pursuing different goals we love each other and respect what each other can do. It's called "growing up" and I'm ashamed of humanity for not doing in 200,000 years what we two siblings managed in less than 20.
That is why I have such distaste for nostalgia. Progress is good. Because of progress we DID eliminate polio and smallpox.
That was progress and in order for it to keep working we have to keep progressing.
Hypothetically speaking, if a non-human species of alien came from space and started killing us, it would be the job of the military to fight back, right?
So why does the attacking species have to be from space? I'm not saying to put GI's in hummers to stamp out AIDS, but I'd rather spend military money attacking the very real threat of pathogenic disease than the vague threat of some equally vulnerable human neighbors on another patch of land than us.
It's a GOOD thing our recent ancestors killed polio and smallpox. It's a BAD thing that they went on to discover it's more profitable to treat than to cure disease.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arragonis
Ultimately though you have to consider do you want to be responsible for the idea of deliberately making another life form - however harmful or annoying - extinct ? Nobody has had that power before, I find it profound.
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Well, the "Native" Americans are alleged to have wiped out the
Si Te Cah...