[extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles - the b wordagain

[kevinfreels at hotmail.com]

"Democracy is a good thing but it empowers
fools to ban medicines and life saving technologies if they in the majority
too. "
This is an excellent statement. Can I quote you on a T-shirt?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brett Paatsch" <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 5:47 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles - the b
wordagain


> Harvey wrote:
>
> > > > Kevin wrote:
> > > > > I am more inclined to believe that ....
> > > >
> > > > I know. Your language gives that away. Resist, resist. Keep the
> > > > meme-pool clean. Try inclining to posit.
> > > >
> > > > - Brett
> >
> > I am not sure this is any better.  To my hearing, saying "I believe
> > that...." sounds like a long-term assumption, such as "I thought...."
To
> > say "I posit..." sounds like it was just made up on the spot, as in "I
> > guess...."
>
> I am not sure what you point is Harvey, but as I've already written
> what feels like about 3 books on the dangers of the word "believe"
> in the last week - what the hell, I'll take another go at clarifying.
>
> People who naturally use the word "believe" in their inner dialog
> will of course gravitate towards using it in their expressions and
> communications (speaking/writing) as well. And when they use it
> more rather than less other folks hear it more rather than less. The
> imprecise word meme gets propagated by use. It even picks up
> credibility by association with smart thought when smart folks
> imprudently se it.
>
> This matters and it matters profoundly because we live in democracies
> and in democracies everyone believers (foggy thinkers that fear what
> they don't understand and don't understand a lot because they are
> foggy thinkers) and reasoners both get one vote each. The believers
> are voting against increases in the rate of change in technological areas
> like nanotech and biotech because they fear change and most of them
> think the afterlife is already taken care of. I don't fear change I fear
> being believed to death by the majority who will not only not save
> themselves but will actually vote against the technologies that are my
> means to improve my life.  Democracy is a good thing but it empowers
> fools to ban medicines and life saving technologies if they in the
majority
> too.
>
> Here's a link to an online thesaurus http://thesaurus.reference.com/.
>
> I don't care what synonym(s) people use instead of the word believe
> I just want the "good guys" in the meme-wars to stops using the
> "bad guys" imprecise brain-fart propaganda. Of course the bad
> guys aren't *really* "bad guys" they are just dopey. But in
> democracies where its one vote each and the dopes can vote to
> ban the technologies they don't understand dopiness left unchecked
> can be fatal. Because dopes vote too and there are more of them.
> I am asking folk to not use and not encourage dopiness in
> democracies by removing the most harmful  and prolific example
> of dope-speak.
>
> If you look at the synonyms for the word believe in a thesaurus
> you will see that some of them cluster around faith-based world
> views and some don't. Amongst the class that don't are swags of
> useful synonyms for budding good-meme warriors that have
> not yet liberated themselves from the dopiness of believing. If
> instead of using the word believe one uses a non-faith-based
> synonym then one will not be propagating/endorsing the believe
> meme and not endorsing a faith-based word view.
>
> Its not important what word is used to replace "I believe" or its
> variants, there are a number of words that can be used and some
> are better for different circumstances. It is important to stop
> endorsing the believing meme which dumbs down democracies
> whose populations can vote to ban the technologies that we are
> looking to use to allow ourselves to continue to live.
>
> A key thing is that as one uses the "I believe" phrase less in
> communication one also uses it less in one's internal dialog
> and one starts to think clearer. But one has to try it for a while
> to find out. Try it Harvey. Try it. Pick any synonym(s) for believe
> you like and practice using them, different ones in different
> circumstances (as you are right some sound better and are more
> precise than others in different circumstance) and watch how
> dopey the believers start to sound. It may actually help prolong
> your life. More to the point for me - it will help me save or
> prolong mine because in democracies dopes can vote against
> all the technologies I want to see develop so I don't have to die
> like a dope.
>
> Regards,
> Brett
>
> [who really hopes this is getting through to some folks
> as I can't hold back the water in the dam even on this list
> forever ]
>
>
>
>
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