From: Philip Goetz (philgoetz@gmail.com)
Date: Tue Aug 15 2006 - 07:12:15 MDT
On 8/10/06, Michael Anissimov <michaelanissimov@gmail.com> wrote:
> Tennessee,
>
> > Well, only if you completely ignore the effect of the environment of the
> > individual and all the other consequent effects of that idea.
>
> What? If I copy the most benevolent person I know, then they will be
> bevolent, no matter the environment. Humans are flexible - they
> adjust. Someone won't automatically turn evil just if they're placed
> in a slightly different environment.
So you think goodness and evil are inherent, objective, context-free
properties of people?
Consider some dark-age hero like King Arthur. What they had to do, to
be good, was to form a strong military, and kill lots of neighbors,
and then impose stability through a dictatorship. Hitler or Stalin
would have been considered great heros in the dark ages. Change the
context, change the benevolence.
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