[extropy-chat] Islamic morons win yet again

[Robert Bradbury]

On 9/27/06, Brian Atkins <brian at posthuman.com> wrote:
>
> Would it be correct to say that under your idea Keith, if we all switch to
> electric or hydrogen or whatever vehicles in order to stop buying oil and
> "supporting the bad guys", this could further the economic issues you talk
> about
> and ironically cause more attacks and terrorism?


I'm of the opinion that the simple rise in population (and wealth) in India
and China will consume any oil that the U.S., Europe or Japan choose not to
consume.  So it seems unlikely that there will be a significant decline in
revenues for OPEC (given that they set the price using production quotas
already).

You will not change the mindset of people brainwashed to believe that the
U.S. is fundamentally "evil" quickly (whether we consume their oil or not).
Even if the U.S. is *completely* out of the Middle East you *still* have the
problem that a Western manufactured state (Israel) populated by a different
tribe (Jews) is stuck in the middle of a region where dominant tribe view
that land as *theirs*.  If the U.S. had no economic interests in the region
at all (which we could get to in perhaps 10 years if we pushed on it) you
would still have the problem of the political interest in and alliances with
Israel.

Keith understands the problem correctly.  Until you bring wealth to the
masses (so there is more to lose by going to war) and educate them regarding
things like genetic predispositions for aggression, relgious memes, etc. and
disempower those who gain power by promoting tribal distinctions the tension
and its side effects isn't going to diminish.

Nanotechnology clearly solves the wealth problem.  Bionanotechnology through
engineered genomes can be made available and solve it much sooner as the
Middle East is not lacking in the two essential resources (solar power and
(salt) water) required to utilize it on a massive scale.

Robert
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20060928/6e563ae7/attachment.html>