[extropy-chat] Guns ad nauseum

[Charlie Stross]

On 30 Nov 2003, at 20:11, R.Coyote wrote:

> Hey Charlie
>
> Firearms are as an extropian topic as martial arts or other personal 
> safely
> enhancing strategies, how that for an asssertion!

I disagree :)

> Obviously optimal living requires one to recognize and respond to  
> dangers
> in ones environment, its hard to live forever while ignoring your 
> personal
> safety, personal firearms are only one option (for those who are 
> "allowed")
> on a defensive force continuum, down a long list of "if  / then 
> scenarios"

You're looking at this on a purely individual level. There are other 
strategies for enhancing your long-term personal safety by focussing on 
the environment in which you exist. For example, if you're concerned 
about your neighbours being violent towards you, you *can* tool up -- 
but you can equally well move somewhere where there are (a) no 
neighbours or (b) where levels of person-to-person violence are an 
order of magnitude or two lower.

What I'm trying to say is, guns are a red herring. They're not 
intrinsically extropian, in fact they're quite the opposite. The topic 
keeps coming up because of the Libertarian/extropian nexus, as gun 
ownership is a hot-button issue in the USA among people who think the 
government is infringing upon their rights. I make no judgement on 
whether this is the case or not -- as I said, it's an irrelevant 
distraction.

Hmm ...

> I would dispose of all (my) guns tomorrow If I had something more 
> effective
> for this option strategy on the defensive force continuum, say like a 
> star
> trek phazer set on stun.

Random thought for you: strongly superhuman intelligences (pace Vinge) 
will, among other things, be vastly better at modelling the internal 
mental states of merely human level intelligences. I suspect our 
interactions with such SI's will mostly be friendly and cooperative -- 
and we'll somehow always find ourselves doing what they want. To coin a 
metaphor, the torch-and-pitchfork mob advancing on the castle will 
somehow find themselves buying their pitchforks and torches from that 
handy roadside stall operated by the friendly green fellow with the 
stitches around his neck, and when they get to the drawbridge they'll 
be puzzled to discover that there's a new owner and the monster moved 
out the day before yesterday (to take over a handly torch-and-pitchfork 
concession).

If you've ever played with a dog or a cat, an animal smart enough 
(going by the intentional stance) to have a model of the organisms 
around it, but not smart enough to realise that you are modelling both 
it *and* it's internal model of you, you'll get the picture.

> FWIW I have only recently come to an appreciation of guns after being
> strongly anti, on the basis of new evidence I "converted" after a long
> discussion with my wife, she illustrated the merits and my ignorance 
> of the
> issue.

Nailing my colours to the mast ... as a UK native, I'm somewhat peeved 
about not being able to legally own a handgun. Learning to shoot was on 
my to-do list before the Dunblane affair, not for home defense but 
purely out of interest. I'd strongly support liberalizing the British 
firearms laws, back to at least the state they were in prior to the 
1980's. But if I thought I lived in a place where I *needed* a gun for 
personal defense, I'd rapidly start looking to move somewhere safer.


-- Charlie