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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal>> <b>On Behalf Of </b>William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat<br><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] antiscience from both sides<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#222222'>He knows how to appeal to right wingers. I don’t see anything a bit right wing about how the US government is running. Do you?</span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#222222'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#888888'> </span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#888888'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#888888'>spike</span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#888888'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'>>…<span style='color:#888888'>Well now there's an interesting question. Let's lay aside the issue of money and debt for the nonce</span>…<span style='color:#888888'>bill w</span><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>Hmmm… Lay aside the one huge and growing problem which has been looming over the world, and the US in particular, for so long. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>BillW, the rest of the stuff is sound and fury, signifying nothing. All the usual left/right noise we hear really is meaningless: abortion and guns. Neither of those things are going to change at the national level. There has been so much pressure, so much wasted effort for so many decades, my entire life, and the ball hasn’t moved. It will not in my son’s lifetime.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>However… The US, and governments all over the world, have taken an attitude that national debt can grow at a modest steady pace of 2-3 percent a year without harm, since typically economies grow at that rate, or fast. Sure, OK. However…<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>What happens if suddenly they don’t? What happens if a black swan event causes growth to go 30 percent negative in one year? And what if that black swan event prevents an economy to snapping right back to where it was? What happens if governments must quietly discontinue nearly everything they were previously doing, and focus almost entirely on debt management?<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>In light of that question, I don’t see any reason to call the current US government right or left, or any particular leader right or left. I don’t even see that this issue has a clear right/left split (do you?) which is perhaps why it doesn’t get addressed much.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>In light of that question, which of these other issues are of any real significance?<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>spike<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>