[extropy-chat] Bluff and the Darwin award

[KAZ]

----- Original Message ---- 
From: Russell Wallace 
To: ExI chat list 
Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 10:27:20 PM 
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Bluff and the Darwin award 

On 5/17/06, KAZ wrote: 
> > But the downtime between the Enlightenment and the Information Revolution 
> > was both short and mild, in the US. Who knows, it might even be better this time. 

> Unlike me, you are an optimist ^.^ This is not a bad thing in itself; the world 
> needs optimists as well as pessimists. I will suggest proceeding as though 
> I'm right - while at the same time hoping you're right. 

Well, I'm not actually saying it WILL be better this time, only that it might.
 
The factors which have made the gap between each period of knowledge and liberty shorter seem to still be increasing.
 
It's certainly worth note that one big reason things fall apart after each information revolution is authoritarian government finally, in its bumbling way, catching up to the new technology which allowed the burst of enlightenment. Once they do, they use it as a tool to even greater oppression than ever before. And, of course, they also exploit the resources created by the burst of liberty.
 
We managed to avoid the worst of it, here in the US, but in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and lesser places like China and its satellites, the downtime was indeed far more brutal than ever before. 
 
But we did manage to avoid that, here in the US.
 
--
Words of the Sentient?
If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little
of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and Sabbath-breaking,
and from that to incivility and procrastination. --  Thomas De Quincey

E-Mail: KazVorpal at yahoo.com
Yahoo Messenger/AIM/AOL: KazVorpal
MSN Messenger: KazVorpal at yahoo.com
ICQ: 1912557
http://360.yahoo.com/kazvorpal