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Why The Future Doesn't Need Us
Atec Февраль 29 2008 20:16:19
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This crystallized for me my problem with Kurzweil's dream. A technological
approach to Eternity - near immortality through robotics - may not be the most
desirable utopia, and its pursuit brings clear dangers. Maybe we should rethink
our utopian choices.
Where can we look for a new ethical basis to set our course? I have found the
ideas in the book Ethics for the New Millennium, by the Dalai Lama, to be very
helpful. As is perhaps well known but little heeded, the Dalai Lama argues that
the most important thing is for us to conduct our lives with love and compassion
for others, and that our societies need to develop a stronger notion of universal
responsibility and of our interdependency; he proposes a standard of positive
ethical conduct for individuals and societies that seems consonant with Attali's
Fraternity utopia.
The Dalai Lama further argues that we must understand what it is that makes
people happy, and acknowledge the strong evidence that neither material
progress nor the pursuit of the power of knowledge is the key - that there are
limits to what science and the scientific pursuit alone can do.
Our Western notion of happiness seems to come from the Greeks, who defined it
as "the exercise of vital powers along lines of excellence in a life affording them
scope." 15
Clearly, we need to find meaningful challenges and sufficient scope in our lives if
we are to be happy in whatever is to come
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