RE: Healing The Healthy - A Very Ethical Problem
The world has always been "unfair". Some people are more intelligent, ambitious, hardworking etc. than others, so of course their lives will turn out better. Some groups of people have figured out how to set up political systems that include checks and balances and reward entrepreneurial initiative. Others are too busy squabbling among themselves to create stable systems.
There is no need for Europeans, Americans and East Asians to feel guilty over their hardwon success.
As long as people in a given society are given a somewhat "fair" chance at the start (of course, we need to work out what "fair" really means), we cannot and should not guarantee equality of outcome.
When faced with tranhumanism, some of the basic questions we urgently need to address are:
"What does it mean to be human?"
"Do transhumans constitute a separate species?"
"Is it possible to prevent violent conflict between "us" and "them"?
[resteemed to promote further discussion]
Thank you for your reply, you raise some good points, and of course you are correct about fairness, however I think your last question is perhaps the most important, and links into that point.
Ultimately if the gap between rich and poor, or even marginally well off and the low paid, becomes more than just money, then resentment could possibly turn into violence. This for me is why it is important to make sure that these divides do not become yawning chasms.
As for your first two questions, for me, to be human, is to accept that we are in a unique position. Among all the other organisms on earth, we are the only ones who hold such sway over their own continuing evolution.
We are the ultimate adaptable creature, and if that adaptability means that in order to survive and thrive we have to become more than human, then so be it.
Whilst we may not become a separate species, I believe we will at least be considered as a meta-species. Plus you have to consider that the status and rights of human (and machine) made machines will also be soon up for debate.
I for one believe sentient machines should also be classed as humans, just non-organic ones. Perhaps, just like in the novels of Iain M. Banks, whereby the species; The Culture, was just a loose term for a group of pan-humans and sentient machines.
That's what I'd like to think anyway :-)
Thanks for the resteem and addition to the debate!
Cg