[extropy-chat] politics of transhumanism and Real Politick

[Bret Kulakovich]

Hi there,

I read this originally and couldn't make time to post a response  
(train time absorbed by problem solving) and now the response stream  
is pretty fragmented, and kinda getting ad-hominemic again.

So I am going back to the source here, and will try to tie together  
this with another recent stream.

There is a lot of notions of 'selfishness' and 'evil' and etc. with  
regard to nation-states, but a lot of this is, I feel, akin to  
watching the seagulls pluck baby sea turtles off the beach on 'Wild  
Wild World of Animals'.

What I am trying to say here is: 'It Worked.' A lot of people  
complain about the use of the atomic bomb in WWII. It Worked. WWII  
ended soon after. A lot of people don't like US foreign policy in the  
20th Century. It worked. The US is a superpower, and now perhaps the  
last superpower. More freedom than any of the competitors. Most of  
the world currencies are still based on the dollar. Reaganomics and  
his Star Wars? It worked. The Soviet Union couldn't keep up, they  
faced financial collapse because of the size of their military  
industrial complex (etc. etc.).

The nation-state as a successful organism. Too many people infer that  
saying something good that is true about your country is boasting, or  
propaganda. Or that we do not, in such statements, give proper credit  
to people who immigrated to this country to become citizens and it  
was their contribution that help put us over the top in certain  
discoveries.

Yet it was their ideals that brought them here. People argue on  
usenet about how the US 'had it coming' on 9/11. How the US is  
cheating its own people because of the price of gasoline. How the US  
generally engages in a variety of phaging or gastro-intestinal  
related verb actions. On usenet, on the internet, over the web. On  
their desktop computers. On their cell phones. What degree of effort  
was spent by the US and her citizens to put these tools in their  
irate hands?

So when people want to somehow feel guilty about the accomplishments  
of the US - and the expense of those accomplishments - I want to ask:  
Who would have done otherwise? Where is the idealogical utopia of  
peace and love that would not have taken the first and every step to  
put its ideology and people as close to the top as possible?

There isn't one - because whoever they were, they were stomped flat.  
And that, whether we are comfortable with it or not, is the current  
state of human nature. Yes, we can apply ourselves and be vigorous in  
our appeal to deal peacebly with one another, but not everyone is  
aiming at this higher ideal just yet.

Which brings me to a the points more directed toward your content:  
Taiwan is a metaphor of US/Chinese relations. Taiwan has a huge  
material, social and economic investment from the US. China wants it  
back for the reasons you cited and then some. China and the US both  
get a lot of value from one another, and from Taiwan, and *from their  
posturing on Taiwan*. Their will only be a hot war if someone finds  
an even greater mode of game play at an even higher level. There is  
already a cold war.

As a closing - a lot of talk has happened about separation of  
Libertarianism and Transhumanism. As I said in a previous post, and  
may even come up later in this thread - we need to look back at the  
source. Transhumanism may have foundations in other times and places,  
philosophical similarities here and there from which it gains its  
heritance. But it did *not* come from Communist China, Soviet Russia,  
1930s Germany, Ancient Persia, Babylonia, ad nauseam. It is here and  
now, and took form as it did from Libertarian roots, and arguably  
from the golden age of science fiction among many things. It is the  
product of an open society, that has looked in the face of  
oppression. There are ideals that may or may not work for some, but I  
think the way the individual is treated being so important in  
Transhumanism, ties it most closely to that set of ideals.


]3ret



On Aug 15, 2005, at 8:01 PM, The Avantguardian wrote:

> Many of the arguments I have heard for and against the
> war, current U.S. foreign policy, and its dealings
> with other UN nations has led me to reflect on the
> current world situation.
>
> For one thing, I see that many conservatives cling to
> a very old poltical frame of mind: real politick.
> That is the time honored cynical notion that
> nation-states are supposed behave as selfish
> sociopaths, futhering their own economic and political
> gain in a playing field without rules or consideration
> of other nations.
>
> I understand that much of world history has shown this
> to be a fairly accurate description of how politics
> USED to work. Treaties are made and broken at the
> convenience of the participants in the mad scramble
> for eminence in the international theater.
>
> While I understand that there was a time when such a
> world-view made a lot of sense. But in this day and
> age of economic globalism, weapons of mass
> destruction, and the Internet, the world seems smaller
> and more interconnected than ever. Can the nations of
> the world persist in this behavior for long without
> bringing about their own ruin?
>
> For example, there is much anticipation regarding a
> showdown between the US and China with respect to
> Taiwan. Now, I understand that Taiwan is a fairly
> prosperous little island. But I will wager that the
> current economic trade between the U.S. and China is
> worth more than the GNP of Tawain. The US and China
> have made many mutual investments with each other.
>
> Since these days, a stock market crash in any one
> market cause a chain reaction of market crashes around
> the world, I just don't see how a confrontation of
> such a magnitude over such a small island is at all
> beneficial to either side. What good would serve China
> to regain control of Taiwan, if in the process, the
> U.S. stops buying Chinese goods and employing Chinese
> workers in its overseas factories. What good would it
> do the U.S. to keep Taiwan under its influence, if it
> means that we can no longer purchase cheap goods from
> China and the Chinese liquidate its investments in the
> US.
>
> These days as people make Internet penpals all over
> the world, it seems harder and harder to maintain the
> nationalistic illusion of "we are good, they are bad".
> I know that to many conservatives this sounds like the
> "it's a small world" disney land ride, but it seems
> that technology is making this so called "liberal"
> viewpoint much more rational than it was 50 years ago.
> In fact it seems that much of the jingoism is
> manufactured by the respective leaders of countries to
> consolidate their own internal power by painting the
> rest of the world as a threat to national security.
> But when there are nukes and linked markets involved,
> can we truly afford this paranoia? Especially when
> there are global issues (like pollution, asteroids,
> etc.) that need to be addressed.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> The Avantguardian
> is
> Stuart LaForge
> alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu
>
> "The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that they  
> haven't attempted to contact us."
> -Bill Watterson
>
>
>
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