Sacred Values

[Secular Sanity]

While reading this thread, my thoughts kept returning to an episode of the original Star Trek series which deals with AI as it returns home from it's mission, in search of 'the creator'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Change...al_Series)

Now, that you mention it, I remember that episode.  "Sterilize imperfections"...that’s funny.  It reminds me of a something that was recently said to me in another forum, while discussing our social nature.

The question you should ask is: are we, as a species, parasitic?

Are we concerned about saving the planet?  Of course, but people often act as though it is some sort of 'Grand' gesture.  The planet doesn’t care, nor does it need saving, we do, but I sure wouldn’t want to have to come up with some logical loop like Captain Kirk did.  My logic is not impeccable.  For some reason it tends to get a little hazy around the same time each month.  

Richard Dawkins—What is natural?

Popular views of nature were often regarded as more or less benign towards the species that comprise it.  Even benign towards the continuation of life itself or the ecosystem itself.  And this ethos, which used to pervade natural history television programs goes something like this:  Nature is self-sustaining, self-preserving.  There is a balance of nature, a balance of species within the ecosystem, such that all work for the preservation of the whole.  Until man comes along with his selfish, exploitative, unnatural greed and ruins it.  My point will be that this disagreeable quality is not new and not unique to our species. It is very natural. It’s a universal quality of all life. It doesn’t make it good and is something that should be fought against. Far from being the most selfish, exploitative species, Homo sapiens are the only species that has the possibility of rebelling against the universally selfish Darwinian impulse. We’re no worse than any other species. We’re just more effective in our selfishness, and therefore more devastating. All animals do what natural selection programmed them to do, which is to look after the short term interest of themselves and their kin. If any species has the possibility of breaking away from short term selfishness, and to incorporate long term planning for the distant future, it is our species. We are earth’s last best hope. Even if we are simultaneously the species most capable of destroying life. When it comes to taking the long view, we are literally unique. If we don’t plan for the future, no other species will. There is a tension between short term individual welfare, and long term group welfare, or world welfare. If left to the forces of Darwinism there’d be no hope because short term greed is bound to win. There is hope that lies within our human capacity to use our imagination and combined knowledge that we’ve built up through generations. Long term foresight is lacking in Darwinism, which only favors short term goals. We can rise above the rules for natural selection. We’re already doing this by limiting our reproductive success. Salvation lies within our human capacity for looking far ahead.