What I’m particularly disturbed by is the suggestion that actions are ‘tainting’, that the fact that some people used nukes before somehow alters mankind from its previous state, leaving a lasting mark or stain, and especially the idea that this change is transmissible. I don’t see how a child born in 2008 is somehow fundamentally different from one born in 1908 in regards to use of nuclear weapons, nor do I see any obvious way in which a society in which the WWII use of nukes had been forgotten would differ from an otherwise-identical society before the use of those weapons.
This appeals to all sorts of contamination instincts, which is why it’s a common and popular implicit metaphor in various religions, but it’s a very peculiar stance for a rationalist to take.
What I’m particularly disturbed by is the suggestion that actions are ‘tainting’, that the fact that some people used nukes before somehow alters mankind from its previous state, leaving a lasting mark or stain, and especially the idea that this change is transmissible. I don’t see how a child born in 2008 is somehow fundamentally different from one born in 1908 in regards to use of nuclear weapons, nor do I see any obvious way in which a society in which the WWII use of nukes had been forgotten would differ from an otherwise-identical society before the use of those weapons.
This appeals to all sorts of contamination instincts, which is why it’s a common and popular implicit metaphor in various religions, but it’s a very peculiar stance for a rationalist to take.