[extropy-chat] Re: extropy-chat Digest, Vol 5, Issue 12

Daniel Matthews dan at 3-e.net
Thu Feb 12 20:27:43 UTC 2004


On Fri, 13 Feb 2004 06:58 am, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote:

> Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 06:34:59 -0800 (PST)
> From: Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com>
<snip>
> --- Daniel Matthews <dan at 3-e.net> wrote:
> > > Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 19:51:54 -0500
> > > From: Brent Neal <brentn at freeshell.org>
> > >
> > > The American Revolution was one too.
> >
> > I'm sure all those deaths could have been avoided, if more
> > enlightened humans were guiding society at the time.
>
> Coulda Shoulda Woulda... the fact is that they weren't. Revolution was
> the necessary destruction to deal with the fact. In fact, enlightened
> minds WERE trying to guide society at the time. British PM William Pitt
> was himself a Whig and in a speech before the Parliament warned that
> revolt was the natural consequence of the actions demanded by
> Parliament, particularly taxing the people of the colonies for a war
> they had no voice in.
<snip>
> Revolution was a natural consequence of the people of the colonies
> having no voice in parliament.

"were trying to...." does not equal "were guiding" if the parties involved 
*were* wiser the entire thing would have been settled by negotiation rather 
than force. Sun Tsu, in the Art of War, pointed out that the greatest of 
commanders avoids conflict if possible.

> Sometimes creative destruction is needed to fix the mistakes of the
> past when too many of the people don't want to deal with the issues at
> hand for too long, and think they can continue to have their cake and
> eat it.
>
<snip>

I think the term creative destruction is oxymoronic.
Thumping an entire nation when you have an argument with a few people is not 
creative, regardless of question of it's necessity.






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