(March 10, 2013 at 10:48 pm)Esquilax Wrote:(March 10, 2013 at 10:00 pm)ManMachine Wrote: Science will never be used chiefly to persue truth,or to improve human life.
I think the computer you used to type this, an instantaneous communication tool to anywhere in the world, and medical science that has doubled the human lifespan, beg to differ.
It's interesting that not only have you cherry picked some technologies to demonstrate a point but you have been selective about how you presented them.
By way of a response, I can think of any number of behaviours that computers are used to perpetuate, that do not necessarily mean 'instantaneous' communication is a positive thing.
Doubling the human lifespan has led to overpopulation in many areas of the world, we are an incredibly rapacious species.
In the tiny micro-world of one individual it may seem everything in the garden is rosey, and I'm sure it suits some people to think that their PC pops out of some shiny factory in the West and not that it is assembled from component sweat-shops in the third world and that it is only used to create 'instantaneous' communication and it is not a tool of oppression in many countries or enables anti-social behaviour and terrorism.
Equally I'm sure some find the benefits of modern medicine a boon to their existence but then perhaps they are not living in a country that is so overpopulated they need a licence to have children or getting over environmental catastrophe that washed away their entire island community.
I'm not suggesting that these things are all bad at all, but they are certainly not the 'advances' we are led to believe them to be. There is little excuse for the particular brand of liberal humanist claptrap that props up the smug western belief that science is a disinterested pursuit of the truth that advances our species.
Nonsense, I say.
MM
"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions" - Leonardo da Vinci
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
