METI: Here We Are! Come Eat Us! Our Children Are Especially Tasty!

...the fetish to narrowly define the (SETI, Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) has resulted in a view of alien life that is as constricted and ironic as it is unsupportable.-- David Brin, Ph.D. [1]

Forget about freedom, the economy, terrorism, disease, obesity, the state of public schools and bad taste. If those who practice METI (sending Messages to ExtraTerrestrial Civilizations -- a subfield of SETI,) have made a bad bet, then none of our trivial local concerns will mean much. (Imagine the movie, Independence Day [2], with an unhappy ending.)

David Brin comments about the METI advocates (METI’s, for short) :

Serenely confident in a “we know best” attitude, they are embarking upon this path in blithe confidence, unwilling to even discuss their plans in an open forum. A path that might have serious consequences to humanity.

(In other contexts, we might say that METI’s exercise Moral Hazard ).)

If this planet’s unhappy history provides any example, all we can expect from the arrival of technologically advanced, interstellar newcomers is conquest and extinction. Why would anyone on this planet want to take the risk?

Here are some possibilities:

A. METI researchers believe that advanced civilization most likely indicates advanced “morality,” -- read here “altruism;”

B. METI’s are exercising their “inviolable right” of free speech.

C. METI’s hope that by inviting ET’s they will ingratiate themselves with the invaders enough to be spared the general harvesting of our bodies and resources;

D. As first “discoverers,” METI’s will enjoy fame and its blandishments if even only for a short period in the likely not much longer history of the human race.

Let’s return to the issue of altruism (-- most likely a case of pathological altruism). Can we bank on the altruism of a technologically superior civilization? Does the development of refined intellectuality and rational, technological skills naturally produce refined, rational moral development that considers the needs and is tolerant of those weaker and different from the stronger?

Consider the last 100 years of this history of this planet. Consider just exactly who it was that inflicted needless death and destruction upon millions of non-combatant inhabitants around the world. Were those inflictors lacking in refined intellectuality or rational, technological skill?

Clearly, neither physical, intellectual or technological development is any guarantee of “moral development.” Status competition, i.e. honor and one-upmanship, alone -- don't even mention resource scarcity -- produces conflicts, which intellect and science are likely brought in to support. That is unless a happy development in technology generates more wealth, of which it is not cost-effective for oligarchies to try to curtail the sharing.

For a longer article with references examining the relationship of cognitive development to moral development, see Moral Education: Indoctrination vs. Cognitive Development?

Cordially
EGR

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FOOTNOTES

[1] Brin, David (2008) SHOUTING AT THE COSMOS
…Or How SETI has Taken a Worrisome Turn Into Dangerous Territory by Lifeboat Foundation Scientific Advisory Board member David Brin, Ph.D. A very important article.

[2] See Independence Day

The Misleading Attractions of Competency-Based Education

Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which he cannot apply will make no man wise. -- Samuel Johnson

I bought a PC in 1985 that had 256K installed memory. As I was about to leave the store, the salesman asked what I would use the computer for. I mentioned an array of tasks I would be needing it for as headmaster of a private school.

He suggested I get more memory, since my usage would be heavy. In fact, he suggested that I, at least, triple it to be “safe.” At substantial cost, I had the memory quadrupled, and picked up the machine for work the next day.

It was several weeks dealing with beginning of the term issues before I could get around to use the computer to automate record keeping. It was with no little dismay that I turned on the computer and got a message that it could only access 512K of memory that was installed. The extra turned out to be a wasted investment.

Education Week reports that New Hampshire Schools are embracing Competency Based Education (CBE). Students will only “move on” if they demonstrate competency in what they’ve studied. This sounds good on the face of it, but is the school system willing to accept the costs of adjustment to take full advantage of what it promises? Or will it just be “unaccessible extra memory”?

For example, will students be able to “move on” not only IF they show competency, but WHEN they show it? If you’ve never done rostering, you can’t imagine the headaches involved with changing schedules in mid-flow of the school year. But if you don’t change schedules, what do the students do? Stay physically in place and get harder material and additional instruction? Or sit around bored? Ask yourself which of these options are cheaper, and you can predict what will likely be the default response.

But there are many practices and programs that will need modification (read “incur increased costs”) if CBE is to be “embraced.” What about Special Education or instruction attempting to meet the individual needs of each child?

But even more fundamental is the long-established practiced of age-grading. This ignores competencies altogether and places kids in classes according to their birth-dates. By imagining that kids are developmentally and intellectually more or less equal, it addresses the social and disciplinary needs of the school organization that are the primary concerns of the community, parents and school administration -- pious lip-service to “academics” to the contrary notwithstanding.

For references and to examine these issues further, see Classification Error in Evaluation Practice: the impact of the "false positive" on educational practice and policy


Cordially
--- EGR

Can Science Improve Moral Education, Too?

edited 2/2/19

When religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic."
 -- Thomas Szasz

Vice-President Pence receives Covid vaccine (Oct 2020) and hails it as a 'Medical Miracle'.

Science has helped us improve many aspects of life: agriculture, medicine, travel, construction, manufacture, longevity and health. Generally, where scientific method has been brought to bear successfully in these arenas, there is little controversy as to the desirability of the results.

So why doesn’t Science step in and find out how best to morally educate people? Traditional moralists and promoters of religion don’t seem to agree very much on what should be done. And even when they agree they don’t seem to succeed very much with the people they work on.

Some scientists propose that what enhances natural human capacities also enhances their morality; and, apparently, their happiness, too. People who run, dance, play, reason, love, sing, read, consider, paint, cook, swim and compare better are happier than those who can’t. They also tend to be more ethical, or so it is believed. Science can investigate what produces these enhancements and help produce them more reliably.

But what else makes people happy? Sex 'n' Drugs 'n' Rock ‘n’ Roll. If you judge what makes people happy, not so much by what they say, but by what motivates them to pursue it, then happiness is, for many, sex 'n' drugs 'n' rock ‘n’ roll.

But some of the products of research on artificial intelligence -- hopefully, perhaps precipitously, -- called "intelligences"(should we read here "minds"?} would not likely be tempted by sex 'n' drugs 'n' rock ‘n’ roll. And people do worry about creating dangerous robots. Elon Musk has cautioned about wakening "the demon." Can Science perhaps help even here?

Some stodgy old moralists -- I suppose I am one – would point out that what makes people happy may not be good, for them or for others, or just not good, period. Certainly we can enhance an individual’s indifference to the suffering of others, his ability to inflict pain without remorse, his hatred for folks different from himself both by methods that have been known for eons and have also been enhanced by the scientific study of torture and propaganda. This individual might be happier for being crueler, more sadistic and prejudiced. (He,she, it might even be artificial.) Has his(her, its) individual morality improved?

Perhaps would-be moral educators, fixating on either Religion or Science for answers to moral education's conundrums have been looking too hard, but not very well, in all the wrong places.

To examine these issues further, see Moral Education: Indoctrination vs. Cognitive Development?


Cordially
--- EGR

Does Schooling Help Develop Conscience?

Everything that a teacher does … to enhance formal operational thought is also … enhancing the development of principled morality. -- Michael Schleifer "Moral Education and Indoctrination" Ethics, 86,2, 154-163

Complaints from Kids about School:

In public school you can’t pray when you want to. (My Mom worries about this.)

Big deal! In most schools you can’t even pee when you need to! (Besides, it’s not that anyone much wants so much to pray; other things are funner.)

What’s going on here?

Any kid can tell you: school is about learning rules, even if lots of them don’t make much sense. (Some nasty kids even say the rules they tell us are for our own good are really to make life easy for teachers!)

You can get into trouble for doing things that are not wrong, like coming in a little bit late, or forgetting a book. (Oooh! You’re gonna get in trouble!)

You can even get into trouble for doin' what is right, like fightin' back against a bully.

What’s going on here?

And we’re supposed to read and memorize what is in the books they give us. But my dad says it’s a load of crap! (Oooh! You said “crap!”)

But my parents say I should do what they tell me to and I’ll be OK. I’ll even get good grades!

That’s what they learn in school.


For references and to examine these issues further, see Moral Education: Indoctrination vs. Cognitive Development?


Cordially
--- EGR

Hard Wired Choice?

Intelligence, wisdom, circumspection, delay of gratification, strategic skill: it looks like it all might be a matter of neural growth. What, then, about our practices of reward and punishments for the choices people make?

Or, to take it from the other end, what if supporting healthy development in children is crucial? Can we continue to pretend that one person’s poverty is not our general concern?

But maybe we are just mechanisms, generating text and uttering sounds, living in the delusion that we are in control. We do what we do and we don’t what we don’t. End of discussion. Permanently.

To review the article which prompted these conjectures , see Separate Neural Systems Value Immediate and Delayed Monetary Rewards

For practical application, see PAIN VERSUS ANGUISH:
Is There No Need For Corporal Punishment?


Cordially -- EGR