[ExI] Regarding Wickedness (was beowolf)

[Lee Corbin]

John writes

>i think somewhere along the way we forgot
> to change the subject line!

Don't forget the signaling effect of keeping the same subject
line.  It can be read "I am too busy, and have far more
important things to think about and to work on  than futzing
with such details."  As Keith has remarked, so much we
do is really about status.

Spike wrote

> > Can we really say we shouldn't be helping the Iraqis beat this plague?  All
> > cultures are not fundamentally equivalent.  It is our business because we
> > are good people.  Al qaeda is evil.

and Keith replied

> An EP view of such awful actions has no room for "evil" any more than 
> lions keeping down the population of zebras is evil.

which is a sentence in "truth mode".  An interesting question to me
has always been "how effective in changing the world can one be by
remaining purely in truth mode?". Of parallel interest: Do enemies
gain an advantage when you refrain from hating them but they
freely indulge in hating you?   Is there any place for hate in
Extropianism?

Lee

P.S.

My own tentative answer to the first question is, "A person---or
his or her civilization---maximizes effectiveness by alternating between
truth-mode and partisan-mode", where the latter gives full vent
to hatred of evil.

My answer to the second question is this: "To remain analytical
towards criminals and towards wrongdoing is itself criminal and
wrong", (even though western civilzation in its descent to selfdestruction
often, sadly, deems this attitude self-righteous and atavistic.)