Ed Driscoll has some thoughts on haters of humanity, who are now making Hollywood films to convey their views.
Hey, how about if we save the earth by migrating into space?
Somehow, I don’t think they’ll like that, either.
Category Archives: Philosophy
Theophobia
I think that this is a much more justifiable term than “Islamaphobia” or “homophobia.”
But then, maybe it is just bigotry.
[Saturday update]
They’re not theophobes. They’re just theophobic about conservatives. So, that’s all right then.
Pushing Back
…against the pessimism. I think that Stephen Gordon is right in comments. People are optimistic in their own lives, and think that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, because they watch and read too much news.
Made Of Math?
An interesting theory of life, the universe and everything. How would one test it, though?
How Far Will They Go?
Some interesting legal speculation on the upcoming Heller decision to rule on the constitutionality of DC’s gun ban, and on the meaning of the Second Amendment.
More Vampire Rights
Jon Schaff, who started the subject, has what he hopes is the last word. I have to confess being a little lost in the conversation, not having been a Buffy fan.
And if it’s the end of the vampire discussion, perhaps it’s time we moved on. To zombies.
[Update mid-Friday afternoon]
Well, I should have Googled the subject; we could have saved ourselves a lot of discussion. Here’s a Rothbardian treatise on the subject from three years ago:
In The Ethics of Liberty, his great reconciliation of Austrian economics and natural law ethics, Murray Rothbard commented that a new species of beings having “the characteristics, the nature of the legendary vampire, and [that] could only exist by feeding on human blood”(1) would not be entitled to individual rights, regardless of their intelligence, because of their status as deadly enemies of humanity. I wish to discuss this issue in more detail and argue that Rothbard, who was kind of a night owl himself, was unfair to those mysterious creatures. The libertarian theory of justice would in fact easily allow for a peaceful coexistence with vampires.
But of course. Just no non-consensual neck biting.
Pressing (Non)Human Rights Issue Du Jour
Jonah wants to know if an atheist would think that vampires have rights.
I guess that they probably have some rights. I mean, I’m willing to grant them the right to be a vampire. That is, if they want to live forever, turn into a bat occasionally, not show up in mirrors, and avoid sunlight and garlic and crosses, and so on, it’s no skin off my nose (or blood out of my neck). But (like some conservatives’ view of homosexuals), I’m not willing to grant them a right to indulge in their (un)natural desire to drink blood. Particularly mine. I think that the Christian formulation would be hate the blood sucking, but love the vampire. But of course, this was about what atheists think.
Though if the blood sucking is consensual, it might be all right. But can it really be consensual? I mean, the consent can’t be very informed. You can describe what it’s like to be a vampire until the cows (and vampires) come home, but is that enough to allow someone to enter into such an arrangement
The blood sucking aside, though, I don’t see (given the limited thought I’ve given to the proposition) why vampires should have any fewer rights than the rest of us. It certainly seems discriminatory, and a hate crime of the first rank, to think that one has license to stick wooden stakes through their hearts, simply because they’re vampires. But if they’ve been engaged in non-consensual insanguination and vampire recruitment, then it seems as though it would be a preemptive act of self defense, albeit taking the law into one’s own hands.
Sorry, fascinating topic, but I think I’m starting to ramble. If I gave it more thought, I might come up with a more coherent treatise.
* Come to think of it, this has some parallels to some conservatives’ argument that gays have to “recruit” young boys, because they’re unable to procreate. This is a notion that I always thought nonsensical–no one can be “recruited” to be gay unless they’re already at least bisexual. I have never been unsure about my sexuality–was approached once when I was fourteen or so, and I wasn’t recruited–I was disgusted at the thought.
The Singularity
Several essays, over at IEEE Spectrum. I haven’t read them yet, but they look interesting.
Phoenix Descending
I have some thoughts on this weekend’s successful arean invasion, over at PJ Media.
[Update at 7:40 AM EDT]
Some less lofty thoughts over at Althouse’s place, particularly in comments.
[Mid-morning update]
Jeff Foust writes about a second chance for an underdog, over at The Space Review.
Saganites?
I find it amusing that these folks were clueless as to the purpose of the Google Lunar Prize when they signed up:
In my first blog, I wrote why Harold Rosen formed the Southern California Selene Group. In short, he and I registered our team to compete for the Google Lunar X PRIZE to demonstrate that a low-cost space mission to the moon could be accomplished and could lead to lowering the cost of some future robotic missions to planetary moons. Plus, we intended to have fun! Harold and I both are strong supporters of space science and robotic space exploration. (For one, I’m an astronomy and cosmology enthusiast.) We love the kind of work that JPL is doing, for example. But we most definitely are not in favor of human space missions. That is not our goal, nor do we support such a goal.
The Team Summit turned out to be a real wakeup call. In the Guidelines workshop that I attended just last Tuesday, the cumulative effect of hearing all day from Peter Diamandis, Bob Weiss and Gregg Maryniak that the “real purpose” of the Google Lunar X PRIZE was to promote the so-called commercialization of space (which I took to mean highly impractical stuff like mining the moon and beaming power to the earth, as shown in one of GLXP kickoff videos), humanity’s future in space, etc. etc., took its toll. I couldn’t help but think “what am I doing here?” When I spoke to Harold about it on the phone later, he agreed – no way did he want to be involved in promoting a goal he does not believe in.
So, what does this mean? It sounds to me like it’s not just a goal they “don’t believe in” (which is fine–they could not believe in it and still want to win the prize for their own purposes), but rather, a goal to which they are actively opposed, and don’t think that anyone should be pursuing. I’m very curious to hear them elaborate their views, but it sounds like they’re extreme Saganites. For those unfamiliar with the schools of thought, you have the von Braun model, in which vast government resources are expended to send a few government employees into space (this is Mike Griffin’s approach), the Sagan model (“such a beautiful universe…don’t touch it!), and the O’Neillian vision of humanity filling up the cosmos.
So when they say they don’t support such a goal, does that mean they oppose it, and would take action to prevent it from happening if they could? Sure sounds like it. And they take it as a given that lunar mining is “impractical,” but is that their only reason for opposing it, or do they think that it somehow violates the sanctity of the place, and disturbs what should be accessible only for pure and noble science? I’ll bet that they’d prefer a lot fewer humans on earth, too.
[Via Clark Lindsey]
[Update late morning]
Commenter “Robert” says that I’m being unfair to Carl Sagan. Perhaps he’s right–I was just using the formulation originally (I think) developed by Rick Tumlinson, though Sagan was definitely much more into the science and wonder of space than were von Braun or O’Neill… If anyone has a suggestion for a better representative of the “how pretty, don’t touch” attitude, I’m open to suggestions.