Is Morality Arbitrary?

There’s a principle, revealed in the Bible, that we learn to understand the reason for an action by doing it (Ps. 111:10b). People without this realization can easily fall for the old nonsense that morality is arbitrary. It’s the idea of relativism: there is no moral authority --- no moral absolutes.

You do not need the Bible to figure out the fallacy that such a conjecture is. You just need to examine morality in various species. Among humans, there are some traits that are universally virtues and others that are everywhere despised. For example, show me a culture where cowardice is regarded as a virtue. There are certain things that no culture would suffer to be done to its little children.

Then, look at other species. Rats will only play with rats that play according to the rules. Dogs have a moral code, and bad dogs are shunned. Chimps like to know who the good chimps and the bad chimps are.

Morality develops according to the needs of the species. In many cases, rules are laid down to describe what is already happening in the healthy interactions. Cult members would do well to realize the foregoing principle. If a rule seems to have nothing to do with benefitting the population expected to keep it, then God is not likely behind it. Nor has it been developed as a description of healthy behavior.

Putting Displaced People to Work

George Gilder presents an argument about A.I. that corresponds with what I posted at https://gordonfeil.blogspot.com/2019/06/ai-human.html. His point is that “replication is not consciousness.” He goes on to address the Elon Musk’s contention that A.I. will render a lot of people unemployable. Gilder states that Musk “is a fool in many ways” and then says that increasing our productive capacity, which is what A.I. does, is only good and frees up people for higher functioning work. In general, I agree, and have often said so. The problem is that many people are not capable of higher functionality. When the American army has determined that nobody with an IQ of less than 83 is to be inducted because there isn’t any way such a person could add value to the army, what does that tell you? I mean, if one in eight people are of such low potential that there is not even one task in the army that they could be trained to do effectively, what does Gilder think they will do when A.I. takes over whatever they are now doing? He refers back to the Luddites, which I have also done on occasion, to show the folly of the Musk’s contention, but I think Musk has a point.

I suppose that people who are displaced by A.I. and who do not have the capacity to learn advanced skills, could do domestic work for those who do. Having an abundance of personal masseurs and in-home cooks might make their employers more productive.

There is a huge social problem over the horizon….

Rebuilding the Internet with Block Chain Technology

It seems to me that the internet was created to share files. It slowly was repositioned as a messaging and information gathering medium, and from there to a vehicle to facilitate trade. This has led to security issues, which a multitude of login/password combinations seek to partially address.

We see widespread hacking of major databases, and we can see that the internet is not a very safe place: personal info is at risk. The following links are to articles that address the concern:

https://www.bestvpnanalysis.com/best-vpn-torrenting-p2p-file-sharing/

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/israels-legislation-has-me-changing-my-internet-habits/

What we need is an internet based on block chain technology. No more passwords. Total anonymity and so no more hacking of personal info.

I hope to encounter companies working on developing such technology.