Hacker News Reader

Comment by riffic | Hacker News Reader

you can not seriously quote the unabomber as an authoritative source on the morality of human achievement.

Perhaps not, but could you follow up with a point-by-point refutation of the material cited, and ignore the character/actions of the author?

"I regard him as the essence of evil. He's evil and amoral. He has no compassion," said Dr. Charles Epstein, who was seriously injured in 1993 when a bomb went off in a piece of mail he opened at his home. The blast destroyed both of Epstein's eardrums, and he lost parts of three of his fingers.

Epstein, 75, is a world-renowned geneticist and retired professor at the University of California at San Francisco.

sorry about this, i know we're talking about humans and all that, but maybe its the intpness of me - but you didn't respond with any reasoning at all, but instead did exactly what was to be avoided - problems with the man, and not the ideas.

my problem with the excerpt is that it is not that meaningful. no one has ever been able to prevent technology from advancing, they've tried many times before, for whatever reasons - and i believe that if we can have a singularity, and if we survive, then we will.

I felt I didn't need to respond to the reasoning, it's the Unabomber. Do people need a point by point refutation of Mein Kampf too these days?

I understand your reaction, but it doesn't automatically mean that we want to bomb anyone, scientists or professors or others, just because we are discussing his ideas.

So in my case, I am saying that the ideas states by the Unabomber minus the bombing are still quite striking (especially about oversocialization, artificial drives, etc; as I mentioned above).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com