11-16-2018, 10:49 AM
(10-15-2018, 10:17 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(10-14-2018, 05:25 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:(10-09-2018, 10:48 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Maybe we simply exchange one set of exploitative and repressive elites (let us say land-owning aristocrats before World War I) for new ones (fascists in league with old elites) after some illusion of progress.
It cannot be otherwise unless human nature is improved by clever use of biotechnologies. The mechanisms of ruling change: from religious elites of the Middle Ages, through Victorian acquisitors, up to Information Age tech gurus like Zuckerberg. But the motives of these rules are the same. We need moral enhancement to really make things better.
Technology cannot accomplish moral enhancement.
Maybe we would have prenatal testing that detects genetic markers of sociopathy... followed by abortions of 'unborn children' with such people as embryos or fetuses. The world would be better off without the likes of Josef Stalin and Charles Manson.
We need remember that nurture matters greatly, too.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.