[extropy-chat] Examining Risks (was RE: META: List Quality)

[Lee Corbin]

Spike writes

> Hi Lee!  Welcome back bud!

Thanks!

> Ja we deplored having to institute that onerous policy; most distasteful,
> even if only temporary.  Now we demonstrate the two extremes: for a long
> time we had almost no moderation, now we have what I would define as
> intentionally overzealous moderation.

Well, I greatly respect all those who were forced
to this collective decision. Circumstances change
over time, as perhaps I should have understood
before.

> My notion is that by exercising these extremes, the
> next volunteer Temporary Benevolent Dictator will
> have mapped before them the dreaded Scilla and
> Charybdis, betwixt which they must skillfully
> and diplomatically navigate.

You'll be a hard act to follow. 

> Our problems are minor indeed.  Consider those unfortunate blighters who
> currently earn their sustenance in the news business.  In the past few weeks
> we have seen editorial decisions result in furious riots all over the globe,
> in hundreds of deaths, destruction of property, cartoonists fleeing into
> hiding for fear of their lives with no clear end to their exile, the de
> facto loss of rights we hold dear, freedoms hard won by the blood of
> patriots.  Do we so willingly surrender these rights in exchange for a
> fragile temporary peace?  On the other hand, are we willing in any way to
> contribute to what may turn into a horrifying and unquenchable civil war
> which may spread to many nations, resulting in tragedy so profound as to
> defy description?  Is there a right answer here?  Do suggest.

Well, your questions beautifully invite a reexamination,
as it were, from a great distance; an inspiration for
an even greater objective and dispassionate effort. But
I'll have to change the subject line to reply!

When I say "we" or "us", I presume to identify with "our"
Western values of open inquiry, personal liberty, a search
for verifiable knowledge, and striving for technological
and economic progress.

With only the greatest deliberation and hesitancy can we
enter into a war with a civilization which perhaps will not
or can not abide those values. But a "war"? Oh, your question
should make any civilized head hurt!  My book group (and I)
passed up the chance to read Huntington's "Clash of
Civilizations", which maybe was big mistake.

No, there can't be a "right" answer. Even centuries after the
fact it won't be clear that there was a right or wrong answer
to our current situation. We may have even reached the point
that our self-doubting is so powerful that whatever we do we
will later perceive as a mistake.

It's mainly a matter of risk perception, I think. The current
debate over the sale of the Port Authority to the UAE is a
near-perfect microcosm. We see how most of us have intuitively
jumped to certain conclusions, regardless of how little we 
happened to know ahead of time about the actual systems and
factors involved!  Yet, is that a *completely* bad thing to
do?

I must hasten to say that I'm not looking for an argument
about petty politics at all, but what *is* nearest to my
concern---what I am almost literally dying to discuss---is
the role of rationality vs. intuition in cases like this
as well as in cases not like this.  I want very very much
to understand the absolutely vital role that rationality
has to play in human decision making, and, if they exist,
its limitations.

Luckily for me, I have already seen unmistakable signs that
on this very list some extremely insightful people have
recently devoted thought to the question, or to questions 
much like it.

Lee