The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant

 Ideas  

Originally published in the Journal of Medical Ethics in 2005, Nick Bostrom's The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant is a philosophical parable about how humanity can choose to overcome death.

Nick Bostrom's The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant is a philosophical parable about overcoming death.

The story recounts the tale of a vicious dragon, with ever-growing appetite, who started with tens and, eventually, went on consuming hundreds of thousands of people every day.

The fable recounts the enormous human suffering and economic toll that the dragon-tyrant was exacting on humanity and the countless heroes who perished trying to slay it.

Over time people concluded that the dragon was invincible and came up with numerous justifications and teachings that we all ought to embrace the dragon as an inevitability. So, when a sage old man proposed that technology would eventually make it possible to build a contraption that could kill the dragon-tyrant, most experts not only dismissed it as a possibility but also as a worthy goal altogether:

Getting rid of the dragon, which might seem like such a convenient thing to do, would undermine our human dignity. The preoccupation with killing the dragon will deflect us from realizing more fully the aspirations to which our lives naturally point, from living well rather than merely staying alive. It is debasing, yes debasing, for a person to want to continue his or her mediocre life for as long as possible without worrying about some of the higher questions about what life is to be used for. But I tell you, the nature of the dragon is to eat humans, and our own species-specified nature is truly and nobly fulfilled only by getting eaten by it...

In the tale, humanity comes to its senses, and overcomes the dragon with technology.

As Bostrom writes,

Related articles The Transhumanist Reader  Changing Our Definition of Death  The End of Humanity: Nick Bostrom at TEDxOxford

Stories about aging have traditionally focused on the need for graceful accommodation. The recommended solution to diminishing vigor and impending death was resignation coupled with an effort to achieve closure in practical affairs and personal relationships. Given that nothing could be done to prevent or retard aging, this focus made sense. Rather than fretting about the inevitable, one could aim for peace of mind.  

Today we face a different situation. While we still lack effective and acceptable means for slowing the aging process, we can identify research directions that might lead to the development of such means in the foreseeable future. “Deathist” stories and ideologies, which counsel passive acceptance, are no longer harmless sources of consolation. They are fatal barriers to urgently needed action.

As well as the animation above, Professor Bostrom’s original text of The Fable of Dragon-Tyrant is available here.

SOURCE  Future of Humanity Institute

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