[extropy-chat] POLITICS: terrorism and strategies

[Robert J. Bradbury]

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004, Kelly M. Ramsey wrote:

> Bemused contempt is an appropriate response to half-formed proposals for
> mass murder. If sarcasm drives the point home, so much the better.

Kelly, you are correct -- the proposals were half-formed.  They could
be reworked to present the ideas that "we are really serious", "we
will not be blackmailed" and "you will not win".  Those ideas seem
to have worked to some extent with Libya and Iran.  They do not however
seem to be working with terrorists.

IMO in large part this is due to the fact that terrorists have
relatively poor opportunities on Earth and have complete faith
in the fact that things will be better in the afterlife if they
die in the service of "God".  So being dead is better than being
alive from their perspective.

One cannot even begin to engage in a productive conversation with
them from the perspective of the Extropian principles (Self-Transformation:
"God has determined everything"; Practical Optimism: The infidels (Christians)
control everything, optimism is pointless; Intelligent Technology: we don't
have any of that though we do like rocket propelled grenade launchers;
Open Society: the aged clerics dictate how society should function;
Self-direction: God has predetermined the course of my life already;
Rational Thinking: Why would one even bother to engage in a rational
discussion when it is clear that everything is determined by faith).

I am *not* stating that these are arguments that would be used by
or perspectives that would be held by all or even many Muslims.
I am stating these points to place an emphasis on the extent to
which we may be dealing with irrational people.

In a Western system we would clearly label people who were willing
to sacrifice their lives in order to behead someone as sociopaths.
They are in the same category as a number of other highly heinous
criminals.

The primary point of my message was to come down hard on the
irrational perspectives of religions that are used to justify
murder or mass murder and perhaps propose one way of resolving
(eliminating) the justifications for those ideas.  In contrast
my "triage" perspective is one that one may sacrifice more
human lives now for a greater number of human lives saved later.
You may not have been on the list for previous discussions on
this topic -- but essentially for each year you delay the
development of extropic/transhumanistic perspectives with their
associated technologies one is talking about a human life cost
of 40-50 million lives/year.  When weighted by a reasonable
lifespan expectancy in the future one is talking about
100 billion person-life-years [1] lost for each year that these
developments are delayed.

> I would be interested, however, in seeing empirical support - from foreign
> policy, international relations, and/or social scientific sources - for the
> glaring implicit assumption here: that the blowback from such a unilateral
> extermination would not result in more loss of life than current circumstances.

You raise the key point here and one that I was trying to get to
by offering my rather extreme "solution".  Islamic people probably
outnumber Europeans and North Americans.  Would the destruction
of their most holy sites lead to a blowback that would defeat its
original purpose?  (Similarly with respect to my other suggestions?)

At what point would Muslim extremists conclude that losses
(in terms of people or culture) were unacceptable?

We are used to dealing with "rational" individuals who will
retreat or surrender when the losses become to great.  (PBS has
a special on the strategies and battles of the American Revolution
that point this out.).  Are we dealing with a situation where
that logic will simply not work?

Put other ways...
  How many extropic rational lives is the life of an irrational
  terrorist worth?
or
  How many person-life-years of current/future extropic rational
  lives are the premature termination of the life of a non-rational
  and/or perhaps non-extropic individual worth?  (I.e. one of the
  Janjaweed or the people upon whom they are inflicting suffering...).

Robert

1. An exact calculation of this is difficult.  One starts with ~50
million deaths per year times a life expectancy of 2000+ years.
Then one has to adjust for increases in birth as technology, wealth,
solar system colonization expands, then decrease for a diminished
desire to have children over hundreds of years, etc.  I do not
believe at this time that we have sufficient data on how humanity
will evolve to estimate the premature loss of potential human life
as human longevity increases with very much accuracy.  I am willing
to be corrected by people who have good ideas.