[extropy-chat] ENOUGH already

[Matus]

> On 25 Dec 2003, at 13:32, Matus wrote:
> >>
> > Charlie Stross said:
> >
> >> I'd like to add to that: war seems to me to be about as
anti-extropic
> >> as you can get. The triumph of brute force over enlightenment,
> >> destruction, death and despair on a massive scale. An excuse for
the
> >> enemies of freedom on every side to chip away at civil rights. The
> >> ascendency of dehumanization is the *opposite* of transhumanism.
> >
> > I would like to disagree with that.  War is neither intrinsically
> > extropic nor anti-extropic.  If one of the parties at war is less
> > extropic, and it wins, then war is anti-extropic.
> 
> Sorry, I think you're wrong.
> 
> We're talking on two different levels. You're discussing ideology, I'm
> discussing methods.
> 
> I'll grant you that it's necessary to address the problem of
> anti-extropic ideologies, and in some cases their proponents will not
> listen to reason. But ...

Those who do not subscribe to reason can not be conquered by it.  So,
are you admitting that as a 'method' war can sometimes be extropic?

> 
> >   If the other party is
> > more extropic, and it wins, the result is clearly extropic.  Would
you
> > have been content trying to 'enlighten' Hitler or Hirohito or Stalin
> > about why war was wrong?
> 
> Is this a case of ascribing too much to contingency? Sure. But I feel
> it's important to note that these monsters you point the finger at
were
> in every case the outcome of a chain of violent circumstances.

Understandable, but that chain of violent circumstances as far back as
history goes can not simply be ignored for want of imagining a world
where war is always bad because no one ever behaved in any manner where
war was required to stop them.  That history is real, and we must deal
with its consequences in the best manner we can.  Your comment is like
saying 'if no one ever behaved in a warlike manner than war would have
never been required and thus war is all bad!'  Its nice, gives one a
happy feeling, but its pure fantasy.  If no one ever assaulted another
person, police wouldn't be required either.  People DO behave in a
warlike manner, how should one who is extropic and values human life
deal with them?  

> Violence
> begets more violence, and in each case (Hitler, Stalin, Hirohito's war
> cabinet) the monstrous fruit grows from a relatively small seed.

By your thinking, it seems even self defense would be anti-extropic.

> 
> >  As I have pointed out many times on this list,
> > there has never been a society more anti-extropic than just about
every
> > incarnation of communism on this planet.  More people have been
killed
> > by communism than all war dead combined,
> 
> Blaah blaah blaah.
> 
> I suppose "every incarnation of communism on this planet" doesn't
> include all those family groups that pool their collective assets and
> resources. 

No it doesn't, I was referring to states that enact communist as a form
of political and economic rule that force the people that live under
them to abide by it wholly even against their own will, states that have
killed 170 million people this century.  

> Or the roughly 75% of the planetary population who live in
> dirt-poor peasant communities and are so poor that they're excluded
> from capital-mediated economic interactions, dealing instead on the
> basis of barter and favours. Right?

People who are mostly ruled by corrupt totalitarians or oppressive
theocratic regimes.  

> 
> The truth is, communism works very well indeed -- at the smallest
> scale. And if you insist that it doesn't, I'm going to have to ask you
> how much your parents charged you for the use of your cot when you
were
> a baby.
> 

Im sure it does, if you want to live in a hippy commune, be my guess.
Just don't toss fellow members who change their mind in gulags to work
themselves to death.

> But I digress ...
> 
> > And tell me if a war to free them from that particular oppressive
> > murderous regime would not have been extropic.  If any part of
extropy
> > requires freedoms of any kind, than turning non-free nations free by
> > means of war is by definition extropic.
> 
> Tell that to the corpses.
> 
> Here's a clue: the survivors may (or may not) be better off after a
war
> of liberation. But the people who die during such a war are cleary
> *not* better off; they're dead. No amount of "liberation" can help a
> corpse.

Ok, so whether a war was extropic or not is measured by how many people
are killed?  Is extropy *solely* a measure of intelligent life, and
nothing else?  If you are going to talk about the results of a war being
extropic or not, you must define what is extropic.  In some cases it may
be reasonable to believe inaction would cause more deaths than action,
is action then extropic?  

What of other factors, I would be hard pressed to agree that what is
extropic is merely a measurement of being alive.  As a billion couch
potatoes may be alive, but will hardly be as extropic as 10 productive
motivated scientists.  

To positively assert whether something was extropic or not, you will
have to define what criteria makes something extropic, and how much of
it was present before and how much present afterward.  This would
probably be quite an undertaking, yet you are all ready absolutely
positive that *all* wars are anti-extropic.

> 
> > Extropic progress requires freedom of information, ideas, thoughts,
> > technology, etc.  In most oppressive states, the internet and
computers
> > are illegal, non-governmental publications and political
disagreement,
> > also are, including property and technology in others.
> 
> Like, oh, cannabis or heroin or cocaine in the USA?

Are either of these requirements for extropy?  Hardly, I would argue
that they are probably anti-extropic.  Will a bunch of cocaine addicts
or stoners bring about a singularity?  I doubt it.  Hey, while were at
it, why don't we force everyone to be scientists and engineers and
theoretical physicists and AI programmers.  Now that would surely be
extropic.  Clearly what is extropic is not solely related to everyone
being entirely free and everyone being not free at all.  Specific
freedoms may or may not be extropic, and fighting for extropic freedoms
would result in a more extropic society.  Defeating a clearly
anti-extropic state (say, one that has *no* freedoms, allows no
technology, and no free exchange of information) is clearly extropic.
But of course, by your comments, if even one person is killed it is not,
correct?

> 
> Here's a thought-experiment for you. Clearly the USA is ruled by an
> oppressive regime that refuses to give its citizens the right to
> experience certain states of consciousness or to posess certain types
> of property. Political disagreement with this platform can (as in the
> recent case of Tommy Chong) make you a target for imprisonment on
> trumped-up charges.
> 
> Does this justify carpet-bombing Washington DC and launching a war of
> invasion and subsequent occupation by foreign troops, at a cost of,
> say, 150,000 lives (the equivalent per capita adjusted for the US
> population of the proportion of the Iraqi population killed during
this
> years' war) to redress this oppressive situation?

No it does not justify it, but why are you hitting me with thought
experiments, you are the one who has made the absolutist assertion that
all wars are anti-extropic.  You have merely cited a hypothetical
example of one that is not.  I have not asserted that all wars *are*
extropic in no way shape or form.  Only that some wars, depending on
circumstances, may be considered extropic.

> 
> War as a cure for social evils is almost invariably worse than the
> social evils it is proposed as a solution for. I find it notable that
> the only really enthusiastic proponents of such wars on the planet
> today are barking mad Islamic fundamentalists -- and Americans, who
> haven't actually experienced a war on their home territory for nearly
a
> century and a half!
> 

" almost invariably" ?  Why the 'almost' qualifier, I thought you said
'all' wars were anti-extropic.

Michael