Good old Ethics
This blog started 9 years ago with a long and intense focus on ETHICS, motivated by the Terry Schiavo situation. That was the trigger that made me start writing. Since then I haven't hit the topic often, but it does pop up occasionally in a way that requires a pushback.

ETHICS, of course, has a perfectly simple definition. ETHICS means: KILL BABIES. KILL OLD PEOPLE. KILL DISABLED PEOPLE. STARVE THE POOR. ENRICH GOLDMAN. When you diligently carry out all of these commands, you are ethical. When you skip even one, you are unethical.

Perfect example in the Conversation website this week.

The article is by something called "Julian Savulescu, Uehiro Professor of Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford and Louis Matheson Distinguished Visiting Professor at Monash University."

I'm not sure what Uehiro Professor is, but I do know what ETHICS means, and Uehiro Professor clearly knows what ETHICS means.

There could be a way of predicting – and preventing – which children will go on to have low intelligence, according to the findings of a study....

A common objection is that being smarter does not make your life better. In this study, researchers were concerned with those with an IQ betweem 70-85. Below 70 is classified as intellectual disability but an IQ of 70 to 75 is similar to mild intellectual disability.

Even for individuals with an IQ between 75 and 90 there are still significant disadvantages. Job opportunities tend to be the least desirable and least financially rewarding, requiring significant oversight. ...

Linda Gottfredson, who’s undertaken much of this research, concludes that at the very least, “an IQ of 75 is perhaps the most important threshold in modern life”. So it is clear that the low-normal intelligence, although not classified as disabled, are significantly disadvantaged.

Uehiro Professor cleverly stops short of the usual ETHICAL conclusion, but it's not hard to read the implication. Any organism which is not qualified to be Uehiro Professor is a mere negative externality, and should be squashed before it gets in the way of Uehiro Professor.

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In fairness, some of those problems are genuine in a society designed by and for Goldman. We need to solve them by reverting to a pre-Goldman society, not by squashing the simple.

Problem #1: Simple-minded people will never be qualified as Uehiro Professor or Credit Default Swap Trader. They are good at many types of useful jobs, but in Goldmania all useful jobs have been moved to China and Bangladesh. Ethical solution #1: EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! Unethical solution #1: Bring back useful jobs.

Problem #2: Simple-minded people, deprived of the ability to earn a decent living, are unable to marry and form stable families. In frustration they often resort to violence and theft. Ethical solution #2: EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! Unethical solution #2: See Unethical Solution #1, bring back useful jobs. Also, bring back simple understandable punishment for simple crimes. Immediate public spanking or public shaming works. A lifelong sequence of trials, hearings, plea bargains, probations, appeals, jailings, releases, probations, warrants, revocations of probation ... etc ... provides an excellent living for Goldmanian lawyers but does absolutely nothing to reform a simple-minded person.

Labels: Ethics, Natural law = Sharia law, Zero Problems

  ¶ 2:24 AM