[extropy-chat] POLITICS: terrorism and strategies

[Steve Davies]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com>
To: "Extropy Chat" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2004 7:50 PM
Subject: [extropy-chat] POLITICS: terrorism and strategies


>
> Basic contention the "war on terrorism" is failing because
> we (in the west) do not recognize that it is a war by a
> "worldwide Islamic insurgency".  (This echos some of the
> comments by Friedman in the NY Times.)
>
> Now I know some of you are going to dislike the following
> (probably intensely) so do not bother to send the list
> (or myself) hate mail for bringing it up.  It is my job
> (IMO) to think outside the box.
>
> One currently sees people being kidnapped and beheaded,
> suicide bombings, etc. in the name of either various
> religions, political causes related to religions
> (e.g. Sunni vs. Shiite, Jews vs. Palestinians) or
> race/tribe (Sudan: Arabs (Janjaweed) massacre/rape black
> Africans in Darfur, Rawanda, etc.)
>
> Proposed utilitarian solution: eliminate the points for
> discussion.
>
> e.g. For Muslim radicals:
> Nuke Medina, Messina, Faluja and Najaf.
> e.g. For Jews & Palestinians:
> Nuke Jerusalem.
> e.g. For Sudan
> Nuke the city with the greatest population of prejudiced Arabs.
>
> No debate, no long drawn out discussions, no attempting to
> come to terms.  Its either "Stop the violence or suffer
> the consequences".  (And in this case the group with the
> bigger stick wins).
>

I think there's several different arguments rolled into one here.

(a) The main one is to pose the question "What to do about people who have
an 'irrational mindset' (e.g. belief in one of the major monotheistic
religions) and who may be able to substantially delay or even halt
intellectual and scientific development?" My response is firstly, that there
is such a problem, inasmuch as the historical record shows a tendency for
the formation of blocking coalitions that seek to stop systematic
innovation, for a variety of reasons (see Joel Mokyr's "Gifts of Athena" for
this) and religious groups and their arguments play a major part in this.
Secondly that the proposed solution would not work and would in fact be much
more likely to spread the idea that advanced science and technology is
evil/blasphemous/too dangerous to have. There are several other responses.
One is to deny that such groups are a significant threat. I tend to hold
this position but only so long as we have a world of competing sovereign
units. Otherwise it is very likely that anti-progress coalitions will
capture any political machinery and use it to limit innovation. Another is
to argue for propaganda and persuasion, using the medium of popular culture
in particular. Yet another is to try and achieve some 'critical'
breakthrough that would make the entire question moot.

(b) A secondary question is the specific problems of one part of the world
and the way these problems threaten to have substantial knock-on effects
throughout the world, not least a measurable hindering of intellectual and
scientific progress. The area we're talking about is essentially the Middle
East, Central Asia, and Africa north of the Sahara. Why is this a world
problem, rather than a regional one? The case is not similar to that of the
Soviet Union. That was a large and powerful state, which disposed of
substantial resources. Even if all of the territories in this region were
united into one political entity it would not have any significant resources
(the combined GDP of this area is miniscule compared to that of the US, EU
or Japan) - with one significant exception. This part of the world matters
to everyone else because of oil. The obvious response  is to put a lot of
effort into finding alternatives to petroleum products. The other reason for
this part of the world having such significance is its religious importance
for the three monotheistic religions (hence the link to the first argument).
Would destroying the Holy Places of these religions solve the problem? I
doubt it vey much, more likely to make things even worse. A better strategy
is surely to campaign much more vigorously for secularism or, if you prefer,
for a rational neo-paganism (I've always thought polytheism makes more sense
than monotheism).  We should also think more creatively about why that part
of the world has such acute problems and how to resolve them. My own view is
that US policy, while not helping, is not the root cause. I personally put
it down to the unique family system of that part of the world.

(c) There's a more general question of what happens once you have technology
and weapons of a certain level of destructiveness, in a complex and hence
vulnerable civilisation. The question begged in Robert's 'proposal' is who
is to do the nuking? One way of thinking is to argue that WMDs should be as
widely available as possible - that's the logical conclusion of deterrence
theory. Another is to argue for some kind of 'enlightened' authority that
would use the threat of such technology to control irrational folks and bad
guys. This was the scenario Heinlein explored in "Solution Unsatisfactory"
and lay behind Bertrand Russell's suggestion for a pre-emptive use of
nuclear weapons by the US to create a world state after 1945 (ie before the
Soviets got nukes). Problem is such a power is most unlikely to be used to
further progress.

My own conclusion is "Don't Panic!". There are problems but we aren't in the
kind of situation that requires us to explore doomsday scenarios like this
one.

PS I have not gone into the moral issues, I'l just say that this shows why
there's something basically wrong with utilitarianism as a moral philosophy.