[ExI] Countering Sanctimonious Luddism

[Adrian Tymes]

Address any points they make?

For example: "ignoring the third of the world without electricity".

1) That's "third world", not "third of the world".  Back in 2003,
electricity was available to
3/4 of the world, and it's gotten steadily better since.  This is a problem
that's being
solved, fast enough that in a few decades, most of those without electricity
will probably
be those who choose to live that way.

2) What about life for the majority of the world that has electricity?
Don't they deserve
something better too?  Even if it was a third of the world without, that's
two thirds of the
world with, who'd be left in the cold if everything went only to improving
that one third.
That's no privileged elite - not just the "rich and white" - that's MOST OF
THE WORLD.
They'll be improving themselves anyway, so why not try to predict and shape
how that's
going to go?

3) The developing world can catch up or even pass established players.  It
wasn't that long
ago that China was a backwater.  Today?  Superpower.  Who can say for sure
that South
Africa won't be a player 50 years from now, or that Brazil won't bring most
of South
America along for its ride?

Of course, all that requires having a way to address them.  Quite a few of
these who say
their views in a venue where they can get debunked, do get debunked.  But
take this
example.  There is no comments section, no way on that page itself to point
out these
fallacies.  There are links to other pages where one could perhaps comment -
but those
are other pages, and thus don't exist to the point of view of someone who
randomly comes
by, reads the comic, and picks up its point of view.

On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 1:44 AM, AlgaeNymph <algaenymph at gmail.com> wrote:

> In concise cartoon form is an argument I've had the misfortune to have
> dealt with:
>
> http://picturesforsadchildren.com/index.php?comicID=102
>
> This is also something we're going to have to deal with, so it's best if we
> figure out a way how.  No, I don't think just ignoring it will work since
> people who seem Righteous & Angry get listened to by people, and by politics
> when enough people are listening.  I'm not looking for solutions to winning
> over sanctimonious Luddites but rather the mainstream culture.
> _______________________________________________
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> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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