[extropy-chat] Human Machinations

[Dirk Bruere]

On 2/15/06, Keith Henson <hkhenson at rogers.com> wrote:
>
> 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


And which population is that? From here it seems to be the USA

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?


A number of reasons
a) They could not win a military victory. Britain was prepared to fight them
relentlessly for 30+ years
b) Demographics suggest that there will eventually be a Catholic (and
presumably Nationalist) majority in NI before too long, with a consequential
vote for unification.
c) They got everything they asked for *except* unification (see b)
d) Eire ceased to be a rabid theocracy and hence became more attractive to
Protestants
e) Eire ceased to be one of the most economically backward nations in Europe
and hence became more attractive to Protestants

Dirk
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20060215/dd83579e/attachment.html>