Ethicum colloquium, the thread on human conduct.

[FaultyMario]

Did you hear about the chinese biophysicist who raised millions to start a handful of biotech companies and then ventured into the field of medical gene editing, and in one clinical trial, instead of destroying a pair of human embryos after allegedly editing them to be HIV-1 resistant, proceeded to implant them?

[The359]

Mengele all over again.

[MR2 Fan]

Fun.

I've wanted to write about my thoughts on the ethics of colonialism/imperialism for a while now....maybe now is a good time.


The question...which I will not answer here, is whether or not the good outweighed the bad when it comes to colonization in history, specifically the long-term positive effects of modernizing less advanced societies by way of conquering them.

Clearly there was a LOT of negative effects, from outright war and slaughter of natives from the various areas, to unexpected diseases wiping out whole populations. Then we take their resources and gold and spices and whatever....

The idea that the "enlightened" people would be bringing technology and a better way of life to "savages" or "lesser" tribes and civilizations that haven't advanced (Whether purposefully or by accident) is an interesting one. I think in general, there's extremely bad short term effects, but possibly good long term effects.

Often after a few generations, their life span increases, there's less medical issues, less war, more modern conveniences, etc. What is the cost of that?

So now, we can visit many places on the globe, and we can eat our Mcdonald's and feel a taste of home, we can go to Starbucks and they know some english words, and we get more homogenized for the "benefit" of global culture and trade.

Clearly there's a lot of cultures which still prefer a simple way of life and feel that modern civilization isn't all that great.

I'm trying to imagine what today would be like if the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese hadn't expanded their reach around the globe and did these things.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Did you hear about the chinese biophysicist who raised millions to start a handful of biotech companies and then ventured into the field of medical gene editing, and in one clinical trial, instead of destroying a pair of human embryos after allegedly editing them to be HIV-1 resistant, proceeded to implant them?

So what is the proper protocol for playing God?

He is not wrong to say that even if he doesn’t do it, somebody else will...

[Crazed_Insanity]

Regarding colonialism, it is clearly ethically wrong because it’s main objective is always self serving, if a ‘colony’ is not profitable, it’s be defunded and given up.

But thankfully Europeans weren’t completely selfish and evil because there were also Christian missionaries doing selfless work. So it’s not a complete disaster...

Just like the ethical dilemma story brought up by Mario, even if Europeans hold the ‘prime directive’ with the utmost respect, surely somebody else will continue on with colonialism or just outright conquer the world later anyway...

So, I’m just glad ‘Christians’ were involved 1st. Because if not, the world would be a lot more messed up today.

Now that the world is mostly Christianized, Take modern day American imperialism for example, whether it’s covert military/political involvement or capitalistic infiltration..., sure, we can have McD and coke and Starbucks, Facebook all over the world, but not really sure it’s all that positive... considering the terrorists we inadvertently trained and created... and our financial institutions also almost drown the entire world in a tsunami... social media can easily spread fake news...

So I’m not so sure about American imperialism, but then again, if we don’t mess around the world to our interests, surely somebody else will do it for their interests.

We can only hope that we can all still try to be as ethically responsible as we can to not screw things up too much?

[FaultyMario]

So what is the proper protocol for playing God?

I'm sure there are international instruments on the matter.

IIRC there's a declaration put forward by the UN and there's a couple of organizations who deal with that. There's important and well regarded institutions from secular and religous groups that participate in that, like from Johns Hopkins, The Max Planck Society and the Jewish and Islamic spheres as well. Key thing here is that they are pluralistic committees and have really wide scopes of discussion, and don't narrow it down to god-like arguments.

[FaultyMario]

Mengele all over again.

From what I've read, Dr. He broke a number of regulations because he was motivated by wealth and recognition.

[dodint]

How can one man ruin every single thread? Amazing.

[Crazed_Insanity]

I'm sure there are international instruments on the matter.

IIRC there's a declaration put forward by the UN and there's a couple of organizations who deal with that. There's important and well regarded institutions from secular and religous groups that participate in that, like from Johns Hopkins, The Max Planck Society and the Jewish and Islamic spheres as well. Key thing here is that they are pluralistic committees and have really wide scopes of discussion, and don't narrow it down to god-like arguments.

International instruments? Really? So there is such a protocol? So who's going to enforce it?

[MR2 Fan]

How can one man ruin every single thread? Amazing.

I was hoping he wouldn't be invited