"The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn. - David Barbary, Methodist pastor
It certainly rings true for white American evangelicals, but it quickly occurred to me it applies pretty well to longtermists too. Centering the well-being of far-future simulated super-humans repulses me, but it seems very compelling to the majority of the EA cult.
Is it me or is there a big ex-evangelical presence in rationalism?
Charlie Stross called the Singularity "the rapture for nerds".
@dashdsrdash
The rapture *of* the Nerds, and I got the phrase from Ken MacLeod, who says he got it from someone else (but forgot who it was).
The design patterns of Christian fundamentalism show up strongly in singularitarianism (minus the God'n'Jeezus show). Not surprising given its ancestry lies in Russian Cosmism.
So advocating for "the uploaded" is like advocating for the souls of the elect in heaven, after the ain't-happened-yet Rapture.
well, Roko did put in the foundaions