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The illusion of right & wrong

I have been thinking about human Behavior over the last few weeks; as my faith in humanity diminishes I have begun to question whether we a inherently good or bad, or in fact whether the concept of good/bad/right/wrong actually even exists. Let me explain.

I have tried to think of an analogy that would illustrate my point and the only one that springs to mind is that of a Train. Trains, in their primary function, are pretty basic. They are designed to meet a need.  Now we appreciate that trains are designed to go straight; to follow a path and do so without deviation.  Let’s consider this behavior as ‘right’. If the train leaves the track, then this is considered ‘wrong’.

Mostly a train will do right; it’ll follow it’s primary objective and travel through time doing it’s job.  Sometimes, when something is broken, or something perhaps obstructs its path, it may derail. It’s tragic when this happens, usually there are huge consequences to this situation.

But there is another party to this analogy; the rails.  Take away the rails and there is no guarantee that the train will go straight or even reach its destination. There would also be no concept of derailing.  The rails are a societal construct; a general conscious decision to be seen to be doing the right things. We know things are right because we are taught right from wrong from an early age.  Take away the rails, how would we behave. Are we still compassionate social creatures or do we start to devolve.

It’s glib imagery, I appreciate that but what I’m trying to illustrate is that if we do not control society, if we let other dictate how communities operate the suddenly, how do we know that our right and wrong are indeed just that.

As a race of humans, we act first and think afterwards. We are far too late to the game to legislate behavior which needs careful guidance.  As much as we can build decent society, we are also capable of tremendous destruction. Not just war, but the advancement of the web has led to cyber-bullying; the easiest way to anonymously bully people, that yo may not have even met. We, as a society, created cyber trolls, and we should be ashamed. This is true Human Behavior.

Take a look at this interview with Elon Musk talking about the dangers of AI; it certainly makes you think.

AV.




This post first appeared on Demilution - The Demise Of Evolution, please read the originial post: here

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The illusion of right & wrong

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