[extropy-chat] Scientists and engineers must work within the system

[Samantha Atkins]

On Sun, 21 Nov 2004 18:26:15 -0800 (PST), Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> Samantha's gripe is one typical of many libertarians, independents, and
> apoliticals which are merely, IMHO, excuse making to rationalize
> inaction.
>

Please refrain from putting words in my mouth.   It is fine to go on
about points you believe in of course.  Just don't pretend something
unrelated I said is a reasonable springboard.

It is learning not to spend time in rituals that don't really cleanly
address the problem.   Yes, that can lead to inaction if one cannot
find a useful action to perform.  But better inaction than a lot of
action just for action's sake.


 
> The real irony is that the more you get involved, as I have in the last
> few years, the more you discover how truly broken things really are
> beyond what you thought from the outside, but you also discover that
> you can be just as powerful and effective as anybody else in the system
> if you only try, and that there are a lot of people already involved
> who feel the same way as you and have been pining for reinforcements
> for a long time.
> 
> There is no such thing as 'legitimizing brokenness' by getting
> involved. By not getting involved, you assent to the brokenness by your
> inaction.
> 

If you are involved in broken processes and your involvement brands
the process as legitimate when it is not then you are legitimizing
brokenness.  It is hardly remotely true that "there is nos such thing
as legitimizing brokenness".  That said there are still some good ways
of being involved and in fact I do take part in some of them.

- samantha