[extropy-chat] electing ideas [was Re:Fahrenheit 911 - objectivereview?]

Brett Paatsch bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au
Sun Aug 15 03:29:53 UTC 2004


Brent Neal:

> I personally intend to cast votes based on pure spite in several
> elections just for this reason.

Sounds like game theory tit for tat. 

Imagine how you'd feel if you were an Iraqi teenager managing to
survive under Saddam and some idiot wiped out your family as part
of collateral damage in an illegal war. 

Who would you think was the terrorist leader you most wanted to
see brought to justice Saddam, Bin Laden or Bush? 

Now consider that the US voters can replace Bush without killing
him and can claim quite rightly that they never voted for a doctrine
of preemption when they elected Bush and they do not support it 
or endorse Bush's past method of indiscriminantly waging war now. 

That teenager may still grow to hate Bush personally but whether he 
generalised that hatred to American's is still in the hands of the 
American voter. 

There will still be a mess to clean up in Iraq whoever is president but
the teenager will look at American's attempts to clean up the mess 
differently if Bush is not re-elected and his illegal reckless actions
aren't endorsed.

If Bush IS endorsed that teenager has four years to grow and plan
and to consider how much he should care about the collateral
damage of his own actions in his own pursuit of justice as he sees
it.  He has a chance to factor into his thinking how much the
American voter cared about the collateral damage done to his 
family and to him. 

That Iraq kid is a fiction in many ways but he is a statistical
certainty in others. 

If Americans endorse Bush post-Iraq, then American will own 
part of the consequences of that Iraqi teenagers consideration 
of the amount of collateral damage he is willing to accept in
going after Bush. 

The universe is contingent.  Tit for tat goes very deep in human
psychology and in game theory and I'd encourage US voters not
to imagine that humans are very different in wanting to see justice
done.    

I am not an Iraqi teenager - Bush's doctrine of preemption has not
killed my family yet - but I am a pissed off Australian. I am going to
have to live in a world of idiot created and propagated terror now.

There is no totally honorable side for me to choose to be on and that
is the fault of the leaders of my country. 

I have seen Bush, Blair and Howard hijack the future through 
incompetence and make it about terror when it could have been 
a lot more about hope.  I will not forget that when I vote. 

- Brett




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