[extropy-chat] The Ends and The Means

[Dan Clemmensen]

Diego Caleiro wrote:

>
>Em Quarta 02 Fevereiro 2005 14:06, Olga Bourlin escreveu:
>  
>
>>Let's put it another way: Here is your choice, America: $300 billion and
>>massive international disrespect and a huge pile of dead American soldiers
>>in an effort to force a fragile democracy onto a torn and fractured Iraq by
>>ousting their useless dictator who was, let us repeat, no threat to us, or
>>to anyone, and who was, in fact, our ally, until he dared to threaten our
>>oil.
>>
>>
>>Or: $300 billion to assist struggling nations and battle AIDS and protect
>>the planet, to evolve our international relationships and set up treaties
>>and unifying alliances and maybe even have a little left over to help fix
>>our own schools, maybe help all those destitute American city upgrade their
>>hospitals and fix their homeless problems and even maybe launch a national
>>health care plan, spend that money on trying to solve a huge host of social
>>ills plaguing this crumbling beautiful egomaniacal empire we call home.
>>    
>>
>
>
>This is the sort of thinking hability that most people seem to lack, the 
>habulity to judge something not like or it happened or nothing happened, but 
>or it happened, or all efforts done upon it were directed to other things.
>Usually, in my opinion, this is the main argument for pre-emptive atacks, and 
>also for those who say that religion is a very good thing, saying the good 
>things done by priests. I remember that once here someone said that every 
>priest is a scientist who could have been, even though this is an 
>exageration, it is true to say that he is a useful person that could have 
>been more. 
>
>  
>
These are not the only two choices. The third choice is for the 
government to not spend
the $300B at all. By posing the binary choice, immediately drive your 
reader into one of
two positions, neither of which makes a lot of sense.

In my opinion, we should never have invaded Iraq: there was no threat 
there, and the
costs outweigh the benefits.

On the other hand the US government does has not shown any expertise in 
using money to
solve the problems Olga cites in the alternative. At least for the 
purely domestic problems,
it's probably better to simply reduce the deficit (i.e., don't spend it 
at all.) This approach has
obvious massive impacts on the economy and historically generates 
prosperity, which in turn
generates money for private (and effective) approaches to problems 
outside of the US.