[extropy-chat] Civilization and War

[Lee Corbin]

Al writes

> [Lee, you are right about changing the subject line,
> but one person on another list says 'leave the subject
> line as constant as possible so too many subject lines
> are not on the screen', and another says to change it
> as often as possible- matter of opinion]

Indeed, the subject line should NOT be changed until the actual
subject drifts.  I've heard no one until now suggest that it should
remain the same when what is being discussed has changed.
Moreover, I believe that this is the official policy here.

> It's not that you are morally wrong-- completely the
> opposite-- but doesn't war have other (admittedly
> reactionary) functions? doesn't war reduce population?

In primitive times, yes.  But since the 1700s there has been plenty
of food in advanced societies.  What is needed is to distribute
capitalism, not largess, to the rest.

> How long do you think the Iraq insurgency will go on?
> 5 years? 10? 20? 30? And what is the likely outcome?

It will go on until a strong-man takes over.  One whose
every move is not criticized in the Western press.   Some
nice fellow like Saddam Hussein.

On the one hand, the U.S. should have installed such a
strongman (who could put real fear into his enemies unlike
the mambly-pambly Western sissies), although alas, so 
long as he was pro-Western, there would be utterly no
limit to the daily bombardment of his atrocities.  You never
saw complaints during the last 30 years in the Western
press about Castro's brutalities (except maybe in Florida).
Had Castro been a U.S. supporter, however, the stories
would have been constant.  This is all part of the leftist-
socialist-deathwish of the West, and the cultural blinders
than make Bush more evil than Saddam Hussein in the
eyes of so many otherwise well-educated people.

Lee