[extropy-chat] POLITICS: terrorism and strategies

[Robert J. Bradbury]

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote:

> I'll just chime in to say that Robert Bradbury is out of his freaking mind.

Good.  Then I'm reasonably certain we are sitting on the same side
of the table.

>   No grasp on reality.  Maybe if we just go on saying that every time he
> proposes mass murder, he'll eventually stop it.

Now, more seriously, you don't add anything to the discussion.
Is there a value to people who understand the principles of
Bayesian reasoning?  How does that compare with people who
do not understand Bayesian reasoning (but might be converted)?
And finally what is the worth of people who do not and will
never understand Bayesian reasoning (presumably these are the
people operating on faith-based reasoning and are responsible
for the beheadings, rapes, etc. in the difficult social
environments I have previously cited).

More importantly you do not propose conditions under which
"mass murder" is either acceptable or justifiable.  65 million
years ago (according to the best scientific evidence we have)
this planet face a cataclysmic event that wiped out the dominant
species on the planet.  Far worse in terms of its consequences
than limited strategic nuclear strikes.

You do not propose (a) how humanity may survive this -- taking
into consideration that the survival of extropian or transhumanistic
individuals may contribute to such survival; (b) the survival of
irrational individuals may not contribute to the survival (because
they don't care whether or not they survive [in this world]);
(c) how to deal with an Anti-AI backlash -- presumably all
Muslim indviduals would be very doubtful with regard to an
AI (that might contradict their clerics).  And so they would
seek to eliminate such perspectives and/or individuals that
support such perspectives.

(Sorry -- I'm just calling them the way I see them...)

Robert