I never said all science was bad. I just wanted to say that not all science is good, and that undirected science isn't nessecerially a good cornerstone for a world.
Undirected science? Misapplied science you mean? Because providing a fundamental understanding of the consequences of our actions and the very basis of our existence and relationship with the planet we share is a vital cornerstone for our world.
After all, you can use the same science to negate all the effects of global warming until it's to late, or remember what caused this problem in the first place.
People consuming resources irresponsibly without consideration for the consequences. Science can't magically negate all of the effects of global warming, especially when the countries emitting the most amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere are 30 years late in addressing a problem that was critical decades ago. And are still debating over whether it exists.
Like you said, science is a tool, not a goal. Knowledge would be a goal, I suppose.
Which is why the improvement of science is also a goal. It furthers the living conditions of humanity.
In order to increase equality, you will loose freedom.
I am well ready to loose freedom on the world in the name of equality. Glad you agree!
Some people aren't. (Note that I'm not one of them, but anyway). There are those who prefer the right to try for something better than a guarantee of something mediocre.
Ok, there's been a fundamental loss in translation here.
I was using 'loose' to mean 'release,' - that I would be happy to give freedom and equality to everyone. I suppose you meant to say 'lose,' and that to gain equality you would somehow have to remove freedoms.
Equality as SalmonGod is not sameness, it is giving everyone the freedom of having all the choices, treatment and liberties of every other person - to a same degree of equality.
Hence my sarcasm to you using Stalin as a poster boy for equality.
1. The values of those times was held by people who found reason, equality, science and progress worthless.
2. Those values were only held by the people who chose to keep them. Slavery was abolished in Britain in 1833. Slavery was permanently abolished in France by 1848. In the USA, 1865.
The plantation workers enslaving the natives didn't care about equality, only profit. Civilized "people" had no right to destroy other people's civilizations and enslave them, working them to death in brutal conditions, where humiliation, torture, rape and degradation was common.
Result:
You are morally corrupt beings driving success from death and suffering.
Not really. The age of humanism was breaking in those time, science was an important factor in the colonization in that time, and progress is just a word to indicate going from one state to another, without saying wherether the new state is better than the other.
You missed out the part where progress means:
"2
Development towards an improved or more advanced condition:
we are making progress towards equal rights."
Advancing to a better state is progress. Holding onto the beliefs of things like slavery because "that's the value they held in those times," means archaic and downright malicious values are never challenged for what they are. Colonialism and Imperialism was the important factor. As was the Christians, motivated by colonialism, who felt it was their duty to "civilize" the "uncivilized" by destroying their culture and exploiting them. You will note they did as you described by destroying the old and replacing it with the new - yet this is not defined as progress.
Reason was important. Point is, reason is just the logical consequence of A to B.
If that is so, then humanity is insane and acts on instinct. Reason is the defining of why we make actions; not the consequence of mindless A to B decisions.
If you put crap in, crap comes out. It's of no real use as a value or ideal. While they didn't believe in equality, but they did believe that everyone had their place in the world. Which might even, in a certain intrepretation, might be a better ideal than equality.
There is no interpretation where the subjugation and torture of people is better than equality, beyond a regressive one. I hope you don't hold that view.
They believed everyone had their place in the world, and that place was beneath their feet.
Let's fastforward to a hypothetical future. In one, everyone is equal and is forced to do exactly the same, wherether they like it or not all under the watchfull eye of a benevolent supercomputer. In the other, the computer scans every person, and gives them a job and possesions he thinks they will like. Not everybody gets the same amount of stuff, but everybody gets something he/she will be happy with.
In the first, society is devoid of freedom, reason and equality.
In the second, society is devoid of freedom, reason and equality.
As the times changed, people's morals changed, and they continue to do.
Snip
I'm not comparing the initial advantages of the slavery with the improvement of agricultural practices in Europe. I was comparing the using of natives slaves with the use of imported slaves in post colization (16the) century America. The import of slaves was an entirely rational descision, based on reason, and initially it did improve conditions. This doesn't mean I support it, or that it was a good thing, but merely that pure 100% reason is not always a good thing.
My face hit the desk, smashed through the desk and proceeded to carve out a cavernous pit through floorboards, 1600 years of sedimentary rock and old city. A limestone quarry would be jealous.
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Topic: Things that made you sad today thread. (Read 9779023 times)