[extropy-chat] can't war protesters do better?

[Dan Clemmensen]

Lifespan Pharma Inc. wrote:

> How then do you split the oil revenue and debt owed to other countries?
>
> We have this discussion in Canada every time  the Province of Quebec 
> wants to split off to be its own country.
> Everone wants the other guy to take the debt bit everybody wants as 
> much of the new money
> as they can get.
>
> Dan Clemmensen wrote:
>
>> I've come to the conclusion that the least bad solution would be a 
>> 3-way partition of Iraq, leaving the Shiites, Kurds, and Sunnis with 
>> separate areas with their own governments. The Shiites would come 
>> under Iranian control, The Sunnis under Saudi control, and the Kurds 
>> would remain an independent state This would be a really, really bad 
>> solution, but I cannot think of a better one that has any chace of 
>> success.
>>
As I said, it's a bad solution whose only redeeming feature it that it 
has a realistic chance of success.

Debt: US pays. It's the cheapest exit strategy.
Oil revenue: The physical partition also partitions the oil wells. The 
Kurds lose, the Shiites lose, the Sunnis win, mostly. Still, The Shiites 
and Kurds are no longer oppressed by the Sunnis, so they are better off 
than they were under Saddam Hussein, and Kurds and Shiites each get at 
least a modest oil field out of the deal.

You Canadians are far too civilized. Montreal may be the most harmonious 
multicultural city on the face of the earth.  The debt and oil problems 
are trivial by comparison to the loss of life and refugee problems 
associated with a partition. Think of dead bodies, blood in the dirt, 
and people forcibly displaced from home where their families have lived 
for more than a millineum. It's still the least bad solution.

Sorry about the non-extropian topic, but I'm at least trying for what I 
feel is an appropriate Extropian approach: define the actual problem 
(facts, not ideology,) and identify actual solutions.