[extropy-chat] Tyranny in place

[Lee Corbin]

At the risk of replying to the wrong email, I'm responding to Russell who wrote

> As it happens, you have tagged my sympathies entirely incorrectly;
> if you look at what I actually wrote, you'll note that I specifically stated
> the likes of al-Qaida are our enemies and have to be fought. What I am
> opposed to is autoimmune disease: allowing our supposed protectors to
> turn inwards and target us instead of our enemies.

I agree.  In very many ways the government has become an enemy of
its citizens, but this hasn't started just in the last decade. It remains to
assess how much "we" are being targeted by government when those
governments attempt to target Al Queda.

> Perhaps more fundamentally, I'm arguing precisely against making decisions
> by affect value.

That's not true if you mean it in general. You know (and have described) very
well why evolution implemented our emotions (and you described why you 
think that this EEA design isn't very useful right now). You are also familiar
with the Damasio Card Experiment.  Alas (for those who haven't read it) it
doesn't appear to be on-line anymore. I'll post my saved text copy of "How
to Think With Your Gut", which has a fair description of it, in another post.

This entire delicious subject of rationality, hyper-rationality, and rational 
integration of our emotions, values, and abstract reasoning must be pursued.
One of our main tasks may be to keep Jef Albright from becoming too
excited by the prospect.  :-)

> Not every proposal that wraps itself in stirring words about fighting the
> bad guys is actually going to be helpful against said bad guys. (Reader's
> home exercise: think of 57 historical examples.)

That's for sure.

> I could claim (and happen to believe) that if the primary threat today came from
> armed men speaking a foreign language, I would have volunteered for military
> service, 

That's probably more than I would do at this stage...   :-)

> If you're looking to criticize someone for trying to make the West weak, you've
> got the wrong guy I'm afraid.

Sorry, but what is the key disagreement here?  I'll post another email right now that
I think may help.  It will still be "Tyranny in place", but I want to sand back---since
you appear to be willing---and see if we can objectively determine what our real
differences are.

Lee