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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>John Clark via extropy-chat<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts?<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 11:41 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><i><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>> </span></i></span><i>No offense to your parents, but the world is far more poised today to be destroyed than it was back then.</i><o:p></o:p></p></div></div></blockquote><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>Will, you DESPERATELY need to read Steven Pinker's book "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined" to get you out of this funk, you should get it today!</span><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence/dp/0143122010">The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined</a></span><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>John K Clark<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Will another excellent one I listened to on vacation during the drive: Forty Autumns by Nina Willner.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Oh this is such a terrific book, a nonfiction memoir, great stuff, the good guys win.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Forty-Autumns-Familys-Courage-Survival/dp/0062410326">https://www.amazon.com/Forty-Autumns-Familys-Courage-Survival/dp/0062410326</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28510777-forty-autumns">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28510777-forty-autumns</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I had heard of these kinds of stories from Ukranian friends. Sounds like something pretty similar took place there during the transition of the late 1980s. I have been thinking of collecting stories of people who were there. Some locals were.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>If you get the audio book and don’t have time to listen to the whole thing, listen to about the last hour or so. I want to see what I can find about that dramatic episode where the fearless leader’s orders were fumbled and a radio guy announced the country was free, even though that isn’t what Honecker and Krenz meant.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>A fun aside: Willner reveals that the East Germans were cheating in the Olympic games with the athletes taking hormones (supposedly from research done by the Nazis.) She has an inside source on that. I had already known of it, because one of my former colleagues was a swimmer at an international meet in 1977. She had taken a shower and was getting dressed when the athletes were startled by what sounded like men coming into their locker room. Turns out it was the East German women who mysteriously sounded a lot like men (the whole team.) The had discovered steroids and were using the hell out of em before the other countries caught on.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Will, do get the audiobook and listen to it, at least that last part. All of it is good, that last part is dramatic.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>