[extropy-chat] POLITICS: terrorism and strategies

[Adrian Tymes]

--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> In particular I would like to see reasoned and/or
> analytical
> arguments that above approach would or would not
> result in
> a) A greater loss of humanity than proceeding along
> the path
>    we are currently on (some convoluted combination
> of
>    negotiation and intervention on a case by case
> basis where
>    the criteria [depending upon the country] seem to
> be highly
>    variable.]
> b) Provide the most rapid path to a
> posthuman/transhuman world.
>    [In particular I am thinking along the lines of
> the simple
>    elimination of humans that cannot engage in
> rational thought.
>    Harsh I know.  Biased and prejudicial I know.  In
> contrast to
>    my normal perspective that every human has the
> possibility of
>    improving themselves *I KNOW*.]

Well, if you're going to take that bias (which I
disagree with, but let's grant it for sake of
argument) - you'd be using up a lot of resources among
the people who can think rationally to deal with this.
Moral shriekfests et al would suck up a lot of
bandwidth for some time to come, probably at least
through the expected date of Singularity.  Quite a lot
more bandwidth, in fact, than is presently being used
to deal with the situation.  It would also utterly
fail to address the situation: the "non-thinkers"
near but outside the blast radius would begin to more
actively oppose the thinkers, thus consuming more of
their resources (including lives).  Therefore, this
action would not in fact speed the coming of a
posthuman/transhuman world, nor would it save lives in
the long run.

There are other reasons to oppose nuking the area, but
the specific reasons you're looking for are there too.