[extropy-chat] Human Machinations

[Keith Henson]

At 03:46 PM 2/13/2006 +0000, Dirk wrote:


>On 2/11/06, Keith Henson <<mailto:hkhenson at rogers.com>hkhenson at rogers.com> 
>wrote:
>At 07:33 PM 2/9/2006 -0800, you wrote:
> >More dangerous than the Cold War era? you can't prove that.
>
>No, but an EP based theory strongly suggests it.
>
> >The danger of a large conflagration of course is a nagging worry as it was
> >from 1947- ' 89, but also worrisome is a drawn-out struggle continuing
> >longer than the forty years of the Cold War, which could bankrupt America
> >in the same way the Soviet Union was bankrupted.
> >And what is the current war? It is a culture war writ on global scale:
> >we're attempting to impose our commercial values on Islam, and many
> >Islamics want to impose their religious values on us.
> >
> > > They certainly are. Can you say why these times are dangerous and times
> > >10, 20 or 50 years ago were less dangerous?
>Just considering the Islamics, why now and not years ago
>
>Because years ago the disaffected went Communist/Marxist and were 
>supported by the USSR. The Islamics were then our 'friends' who we helped 
>build up against those Goddless Communists. Now Capitalism is triumphant 
>and the only alternative ideology is Islam.

Wrong level.  A population of people possessed of xenophobic memes is on 
the causal path to war, but isn't the root cause.  People can *always* find 
some stupid ideological reason to fight, but they don't do so all the 
time.  What causes xenophobic memes to become more common at some times 
than at others?

Related question.  Why did support for the IRA eventually die out?

Keith Henson