When civil war broke out in Syria, scientist Ahmed Amri immediately thought to rescue the seed bank that sat in cold storage in Aleppo:
Specifically, 141,000 packets of them sitting in cold storage 19 miles south of Aleppo. They included ancient varieties of wheat and durum dating back nearly to the dawn of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent, and one of the world’s largest collections of lentil, barley, and faba bean varieties—crops that feed millions of people worldwide every day. If these seeds were decimated, humanity could lose precious genetic resources developed over hundreds, or in some cases thousands, of years. And suddenly, with the outbreak of violence, their destruction seemed imminent.
It's rare that people consider stores of human knowledge more precious than their own lives. What knowledge would Soylentils sacrifice their own lives to save?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @04:39PM
Why is this even a question?
Why not? Asking questions is one of the essential steps in science.
Of course knowledge is more important than any individual life!
That's up to the life holder. Only you should have the right to decide what your life is worth.
That is why it is called science!
I'm pretty sure that's not the reason.
I have lived much more than any mortal ought to
Nobody "ought to" die at any point of time, don't push your existential crisis to the rest of us.
but it is still the same, knowledge over life
Knowledge is proportional to time and effort spent, you never have to stop learning unless you decide to or become incapable of it.
Ahmed is a hero.
Heroes die first. I can't help but to see our tenancy to glorify heroism as a form of mass psychosis.