Thursday, December 14, 2017

Body Augmentation

We have more power to artificially change our bodies than literally every generation of humans before us. In the near future, technology will only improve and body augmentation services will only get cheaper and more effective. By itself, this isn't necessarily a bad thing - in fact it can be a great thing! The scary part is the growing divergence between technological growth and moral growth. If we don't grow our understanding of moral philosophy, then our moral decisions will be largely influenced by our culture and biology. Why is this a problem? Well, for small things like piercings and tattoos, it's not. But for potentially irreversible things like gender change or silicon implants, it could be. 

Don't get me wrong, I think in some circumstances, extreme body augmentation can be a great thing and can empower a person to maximize their well-being. But I suspect that's not what we'll be dealing with in the near future; instead I suspect people will be shaping their bodies blindly in response to arbitrary changes in culture.

This is just one example that I believe underscores the importance of ripping the responsibility of deciding morality away from religion and moral relativists, and placing it in the hands of scientists who can objectively progress it from a few simple axioms.


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