Part of what makes a danger of modern approaches to addressing public policies that bear on "progress" is that we tend to view them on an individual basis, and when we do realize that they are tangential to each other, we hesitate to follow the implications but so deeply. (Sometimes the hesitance results from the complexity, sometimes from the sense that we'll be proven wrong in what we want to believe.)
My latest column for TheFactIs.org dwells on the intersection of embryonic stem cell research, "right to die" trends, socialist healthcare schemes, and radical life extension. Ultimately, I don't think any of these issues can be fully appreciated without consideration of the others. (And many others, but one can only do so much in fewer than 1,000 words.)
Posted by Justin Katz at May 26, 2005 6:50 PMA big portion of the hesitation you describe is the natural result of the pace of technological change. Not so long ago, people had a pretty firm idea of what the world would look like a 100 years in the future. Or they thought they did. That sense of being able to predict the long-term future made it easier to think in those terms.
People have always thought in the short term, but once upon a time they thought in the long term, too---because they could. Now we can't, or at least it's extremely difficult. We know that we don't know the future, so all that's left for us to focus on is the present.
To take a concrete example, suppose that some scientist fifty years hence discovers how to create sperm from a woman's DNA, or an ovum from a man's. It would totally change the terms of the SSM debate for many.
Posted by: Ben Bateman at May 26, 2005 7:37 PM
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