[extropy-chat] POLITICS: terrorism and strategies

[Steve Davies]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, June 25, 2004 8:25 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] POLITICS: terrorism and strategies


>
> 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 agree with your assessment of the impact and nature of these measures. If
things continue as they are the US is going to suffer very badly in the
market for able graduates and researchers, with considerable long term
effects. However, I don't see that this is the inevitable and unavoidable
result of the situation in the Middle East and all that goes with it. It's
the result of political decisions which were not the only ones possible, to
put it mildly, and which I would argue were not the best advised.

>
> 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

I take this point. Seems to me there are two possible kinds of threat. One
is that of extra-legal, vigilante violence of the kind that animal rights
activists and others have used. The way to respond to that is to use the law
and campaigning/propaganda to build public support. One way of doing this is
to use specific individual cases - these have much more effect in the modern
media than generalised, principled arguments.

The second kind of threat is that large groups such as organised religions
may capture the machinery of the state in one way or another and use it (in
a "Pavane" type scenario) to block change. I don't see that Robert's
solution is going to be of any help here. Apart from arguing and campaigning
against the God-botherers and others (time to revive old style militant
secularism) the key for me is to limit the scope of political power and
above all to ensure that there is still competition between states. I can
see religious groups gaining power in some parts of the world but not
everywhere. Above all, I don't see that being a possibility in China or
Japan.

Steve