[extropy-chat] POLITICS: terrorism and strategies

[Robert J. Bradbury]

The response from Steve Davies was very good and along the
lines of what I was looking for (i.e. reasons why my
proposed solution was probably flawed).

I would tend to agree with him that the problem is not
so bad (yet) that such extreme solutions are a good idea.
However there is fallout due to the problem (e.g. the
Supreme Court recently ruled that if a police officer
requests your name you must provide it and the whole
host of violations of freedom/privacy involved in the
Homeland Security Act(s)).

So as a result of the behavior of these radicals we
(at least in the U.S.) are losing rights (justified
on the basis of protecting ourselves).  There are
extended consequences (harder for foreign students
to get VISAs to study in the U.S. -- so much so that
many have given up trying -- net result decreased
personpower for the U.S. creative industrial base and
therefore delayed nanotech, biotech and infotech
development rates -- impacting negatively *most*
of the things people on the Extropians care about...).

I am using the problem of people with irrational beliefs
and how one deals with them (getting people to change
beliefs is a *very very* hard problem) as a lead in
into the potential problem of what happens if they
decide that people with extropian or transhumanistic
perspectives should be subjected to the beheading
ritual (or worse the bring back the concept of impalement).
They have tended to pick targest on a random (workers
in foreign countries) or symbolic (the WTC) basis.
What happens when they decide we actually represent
a threat?

Robert