Inspired by a Discover article (again) to add a commentary article to the ORU web site. Article featured evidence of "hardwiring" in our emotional reactions to moral issues that is detectable using MRI techniques. The article I wrote discusses Reetion psych profiling in light of this inspiration, but a second resonance for me was the "yep, we're doomed" feeling of discovering that, indeed, people do not tend to have those moral, emotional reactions when the stimulus of immediate fellow human beings is removed. That is, we might be able to use our evolved fail safes to damp down a face to face fight, but it's all academic when it's a red button and the gore is not "in our face". I'd count that a vote in favor of Sword Law, as a survivable solution to human conflicts, too. If we take the people factor out of decisions, we are apt to treat existance like a video game. And we KNOW how careful we are about not blowing up the universe in THOSE.
posted by Lynda at 10:38   comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments