Buying and Distributing A COVID-19 Vaccine will Involve Hard Ethical and Practical Choices

COVID-19 VACCINE

Barbara Allen and Michael Macaulay

The Conversation | November 18, 2020

The world was ablaze with hope following the announcement last week that a vaccine developed by Pfiser and BioNTech may be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19.

New Zealand politicians were quick to point out 1.5 million doses had already been pre-purchased through a legally binding agreement signed in late September to buy any vaccine to emerge from the multilateral COVAX facility.

Artificial intelligence: Socioeconomic, political and ethical dimensions

by Jon V. Kofas

Pambazuka News| May 04, 2017

Ars Technica

Introduction: Humanity’s future in AI-biosynthetic world

In a few centuries or perhaps a few decades, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and biosynthetic engineering will be perfected to the degree that androids will closely resemble humans and biosynthetically engineered humans will resemble androids. Despite the nightmares of such a prospect for some scientists, humanist scholars and theologians, AI will be a dream becoming reality for those espousing Max More’s philosophy of “transhumanism”, a movement whose goal is to enhance the human condition physically and intellectually through the application of scientific and technological means. (Carvalko, Joseph, The Techno-human Shell-A Jump in the Evolutionary Gap. Sunbury Press, 2012)