Sangita Iyer
Huffington Post
November 28, 2012
COMMENT: “New Ethics” here and elsewhere is a code word for a technocratic, centralized system implementing neo-eugenics and controlling all aspects of life, now in the name of saving the Earth. Here the argument is to shift from anthropocentrism (i.e. focused on the environment and other species), but in reality this is a Trojan horse for global governance that increasingly demonizing, delegitimizes and disenfranchises individual rights and forces populations to submit to collectivist control systems. Fabian Socialist and eugenicist George Bernard Shaw made clear the kind of control over life, death and lifestyle the technocrats intend to achieve (and it goes beyond just “socialism”): “Under socialism you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you like it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live you would have to live well.” Well meaning environmentalists need to identify and detach from authoritarian “green” measures, whether couched in overpopulation, climate change or endangered species rhetoric.
[…] Over the past 250 years, man’s actions have continued to alter the Earth’s atmosphere dramatically. Thanks to the scientific and industrial revolutions which transformed industries such as manufacturing, agriculture, and mining, and improved the socioeconomic and cultural conditions. Technology advanced in leaps and bounds by the mid-1800s, and by the 21st century, modern medical technologies such as cell biology progressed so much that man had the power to defy age and extend life.
In 1960 the average person lived 53 years, but in 2010 the average human life was extended to 60 years. In 1800 the world’s population was one billion, it took 130 years to reach two billion, but within 30 years, by 1960, there were three billion people on this planet. Fast forward to November 2012, and more than seven billion of us are living on earth. The problem with this kind of exponential population growth is that it is perpetuating pollution problems, which in turn is having a detrimental effect on all living beings (see Environmental Ethics by Paul Pojman & Louis Pojman).
But the paradox is, people who have contributed the least to global warming are the ones that are impacted the most. Here again the unintended consequences of rapid technological advances comes under scrutiny, but a more important question is, “Is it ethical to act without knowing the consequences of these advances?” And Jonas questions, did anyone ever consider that in order to maintain the Earth’s balance? (“If we abolished death we must abolish procreation as well.”) Apparently not!
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Also, the ancient ethics did not consider the power of knowledge to predict the after effects, consequently no one is held responsible for the unintended consequences of man’s actions, which are threatening the survival of his own species: “No previous ethics had to consider the global condition of human life and the far-off future, even the existence of the race.” It is clear that these antiquated ethics are no longer suitable for an era dominated by modern technology; therefore “the changed nature of human actions call for a change in ethics as well,” according to Richard Bernstein in Rethinking Responsibility.
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