[ExI] chinese colonization of africa etc

[Adrian Tymes]

On Fri, Sep 12, 2025 at 4:07 PM spike jones via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> My poignant memoir has no moral, no point, there was no reason I should post
> it in this forum, but Kelly's Haiti story reminded me of that event which
> happened over fifty years ago.

As with Bill and the AI he consulted, I can see morals to this tale.

The biggest one is the place of honesty over empathy.  They knew it
was illegal.  What did they think would happen if they took the kid?
The right thing to do would have been to tell the mother.

"No.  If we take the baby, he will not live.  I don't know what you've
heard, but saving your baby is not something we, or America, can do.
Our powers are great but specific.  We are not gods.  Further, if we
take the baby, there will be trouble.  We will never be able to
return.  These medicines we give to your tribe, we will no longer be
able to.  All that would result if we took your baby is damage.  We
know you think we can save the baby, but we can not, and to even try
will do more harm to your village than if we refuse."

If the desperate mother continues, gently take the baby and set it
aside - on a table, on the ground if necessary - then look the mother
in the eyes and tell her, "We can not.  For the good of your village,
we can not."  Let the chief translate that if necessary.

If she continues further, technology et al become somewhat irrelevant.
At that point it's a desperate person who is trying anything she
thinks might work and refuses to listen to why what she's trying not
only won't work but will backfire, an element of human nature dating
back to long before that village was founded (let alone before
airplanes were invented).  Hopefully the chief knows how to handle
that.