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Quote of the Day: Becoming Less Human
“When human beings try to become more than human, they become less than human.” –Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Originally when I signed up for this date, I didn’t realize that it was Election Day. But then I realized that it was an apt quotation, given the state of our country. Will the people we elect honor our humanity, or will they degrade their own?
What does it mean to try to become more than human? I’d suggest it refers to those people who consider themselves “the elite”; they know better than the riff-raff of the country what the country needs. They know what is best for all of us as a people. They have no respect for America, describing our country as evil and decadent. They think they can transform people into “the right kind” of people, those who will give up everything that is important to them: the family unit, religion, American values, restraint in making changes, and that we will defer quietly to their decisions. They believe we are foolish enough to be tempted by bad ideas.
Those people are the leaders of the Left. They view us contemptuously, with scorn, and they believe the only thing we have to offer this country is obedience and manpower. We are merely cogs in their machine.
These people are human but they lack humanity.
We must take our country back.
[Please pray for Rabbi Sacks who is fighting cancer at this time.]
Published in Group Writing
Bwahahahahaha!
Improvement only by your own image.
Using human reason and ingenuity to improve ourselves would be in the image of a God according to Aristotle. Besides whoever we choose to breed with is a selection of certain genetic preferences anyway.
Aristotle knows squat about the image of G-d. And humans will never agree about beauty. We aren’t G-d– only created in His image–which is more than physical beauty.
What about those who don’t want to allow you to do that?
We leave them be. Easy peasy.
That’s very gracious of you.
And it’s kinda smarmy of you to assume automatically that I am for government coercion. Why would you assume that?
Phrases like “I want to genetically engineer everyone…”, “Let us…”, and “new mankind.” You don’t get stuff like that without coercion.
Of course you do. It used to be that 90% of people lived in absolute poverty. Through scientific advances and the free market, the global population that suffers absolute poverty is about 8% or so. There is no reason that people voluntarily advancing their children, can make things better.
I presume that last “can” was supposed to be a “can’t.”
Some people may run in horror from your version of better. More likely, though, they will descend into alcoholism and substance abuse. That’s what has happened in the past when they had no choice but to live in the “better” world with all its scientific advances, etc.
What are you talking about? Do you have any evidence that economic growth and advances in science lead to alcoholism?
Indigenous peoples around the world didn’t react well to the new and better lives that left them no place for their older ways of living. Part of the problem is that the newer, advanced ways are also more boring and don’t allow for the intense relationships in which people have life-and-death dependency on each other. Gender roles necessarily change along with the scientific advances, and that is part of the problem. You can’t just throw a switch and make people comfortable with the new roles, even generations down the road. Not when cultural memory is part of their lives.
I am more than willingly to argue that the advancement of the Scottish industrial revolution on average improve the life of the average Brit. And that over time, it improved the life of the average Brit immensely. Of course that never happened to indigenous peoples like we wanted it to. Yet please recall, that the lives of indigenous people according to Steven Pinker were intensely violent and often short. It was however very fun from what I’ve heard.
This is one of the best Joe Rogan podcast ever about the subject.
We should all be quite unsatisfied with how modern advances in science and technology did not advance indigenous peoples in a productive and healthy way but I don’t think that’s a good reason for getting rid of technological progress altogether. Additionally, Quanah Parker struck a better bargain with the white government and the Comanche tribe is now the least poor among the indigenous peoples of the United States.
This is true. They had shorter, more violent lives. Also, they didn’t react well or adjust well to “civilized” life, just as we conservatives are not reacting well to those who want to force a civilized health care system on us, even if that civilized system results in better herd health.
Both emerge from a strong centrally controlled government remaking society. But societies remake themselves all the time through technology. No one goes to Blockbuster anymore. Gaming is both a leading form of entertainment and an advanced (and advancing) art form. When couples get to make their kids more attractive and intelligent through whatever CRISPR we have at that time, don’t you think they’ll do it without government power?
I’m sure they will. Then we’ll see if evolution favors the genes of people willing to do that. I’m glad I won’t be around to live in that hellhole.
Why is it a hellhole? It’s pleasant people getting along and flirting and being pleasant. People have the I.Q. and mental health to get a job, they are a bit less inclined to be racist or violent. I want to live in that world. There are Christians and Buddhists and gays and all that in this world as well. The old left and right debates are still being hashed out (however everyone on the left basically accepts free markets) so why is what I would call humanity 1.5 so much worse than humanity 1.0. (Humanity 1.0 is us.)
The reason many people would want to create more attractive, more intelligent, healthier children would be to give them an advantage over other people. If you breed that desire out of people, they will be replaced by others. So that will create opportunities for all sorts of conflicts, and governments will be called on to enact and enforce prohibitions and restrictions on this and that. It’s the stuff of nightmares.
Translation: If it is not one thing it is another.
I would also add that when technology tries to “improve” something, there are often unintended consequences. I heard just the other day that something was modified, and another human system was harmed. When we mess with human beings, trying to change them, we are taking on the role of G-d. That’s not what we are here to do.
That is exactly what we are here to do. We are here to make things better.
Would a kind and loving G-d be comfortable with sickle cell, hemophilia and schizophrenia? Why are we to allow death and despair when we can prevent it?
The problem is your definition of “better.”
Happy, healthy and wealthy.