[extropy-chat] Hating versus Loving

[The Avantguardian]

--- Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:

> You always drift off into Bush-hate.  Why do you
> hate so much?    :-)

Because he threatens everything I love about America
and the world. Yet I don't hate him. I just want to
see him and his co-conspirators expatriated and or
imprisoned. They are the toxin America's kidneys need
to cleanse from our system in order for us to survive
and preserve our way of life.

Furthermore I swore an oath when I joined the military
to uphold and defend the Constitution against all
enemies foreign and DOMESTIC. The President is the
commander in chief of the Armed Forces of which I am
no longer a part of so I no longer need to obey him. 

There is no expiration date on my oath although as a
civilian I no longer have a chain of command to answer
to. By violating his oath of office, Bush threatens
the Constitution and is a domestic enemy of the
American people.

So now, I am ronin honor-bound to protect the U.S.
Constitution. And the guy in charge of protecting it,
is wiping his ass with it. Weird isn't it?

> I'm not a victim!  Not any more. I can afford to
> live where it's easy and safe, and everyone is
> courteous. Everywhere I happen to go (which
> isn't far, I admit) everything is perfectly normal
> and civilized. I don't need to be "street-wise".
> NO ONE SHOULD NEED TO BE
> STREET WISE!

Now who is the unrealistic idealist? Nobody should
need to be rational either but we do. The wisdom of
the street is wisdom nonetheless. 
 
> I'm telling you, that in certain schools it simply
> cannot be helped:  there will always be those
> who are weaker, and you're simply being 
> unreasonable to blame them for not taking
> karate lessons or what-have-you. Rather than
> kids adjusting to the presence of crime and
> bullies, why don't we all try to strongly rid
> ourselves of those elements which make
> neighborhoods unsafe? (And please, that's
> not a question about Amerian foreign policy
> or about Bush's "war crimes".)

Because it is evolutionarily the best thing to do. If
the transhumanist dream of self-directed species
evolution is to come about, we have to make ourselves
fit enough to survive the unexpected while we develop
the technology to undo the inevitable.

> No.  As I read history, it looks rather effective.
> Carthago delenda est, and many examples
> like it. Without hate of what the Japanese did, the
> Americans could not have brought the Pacific war
> to an end. 

Without hate, Rome WOULD not have destroyed Carthage.
But did not Carthage hate Rome just as much? Why did
hate serve one and not the other? Hate is the most
treacherous of all emotions. It makes you *feel*
invincible and beligerent all the way up to point
where you run up against someone stronger. Then it
abandons you. Like it did Carthage against Rome. Like
it did Rome against the Huns.

Love on the other hand *makes* you strong. Stronger
than you ever thought you could be. You contend that
without hate, the U.S. could not have brought the
Pacific War to an end. That is not so. Our anger at
Pearl Harbor gave us the courage to enter the fray but
did not sustain us.

Our love of our families at home and our european
allies sustained the U.S. in a two-front war until it
could defeat Nazi Germany. Hate could not have taken
the beach at Normandy. The Nazi's had hate. The Nazis
were FOUNDED on hate. Yet they surrendered in droves
to American Marines soaked in the blood of their
beloved comrades. Love is stronger than hate.

Patton, short on fuel and supplies, defeated Rommel's
superior Panzers in N. Africa not too far from where
Carthage used to be, because he respected and admired
Rommel enough to read Rommel's book on tank warfare.
Love is stronger than hate.  

At the Battle of the Bulge, Germany's attempt to
decieve America by having German units dress in
American uniforms failed, because we had black
soldiers and they didn't. Love is stronger than hate.


 In the Pacific War, American Indians speaking Navajo
over the radio served as an unbreakable code that the
Japanese could not crack. Love is stronger than hate. 
   

Germany was the most technologically sophisticated
country on the planet at the time, but it's hate
chased away all its best phycisists. Americas love
gave them a new home, even though they were our
ENEMIES just days before. That is how we got the bomb
first. That is how we won the Pacific and the War.
Because love is stronger than hate.     

> You consider yourself *perfectly* safe in your
> neighborhood?
> Has it been taken over by gangs?
> Would you mind if it was, seeing as you are so
> good at not being a victim of any sort?
> If you
> don't want your neighborhood taken over by
> gangs, please explain why.

Just because I am confident in my strength does not
make me stupid or arrogant. Alexander the Great was
likely killed by a mosquito from which he caught
malaria. Steve Irwin was killed by a two foot fish.
The battle is not always to the strong. I practice
martial arts not because I enjoy fighting because I
don't want to. You like latin so much, here:

Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum. "If you want
peace prepare for war." I would further add: try to
avoid one, if possible, and never start one. 
 
> > I am urging you to refuse to be a victim. NOT
> > by graduating to victimizer, mind you. But
> > instead by leaving the cycle of fear and violence
> > completely.  
> 
> That does sound a lot like dying!

It's only equivalent to dying if you live in fear. If
you don't, it is just living.

>  But I know you
> can't be suggesting that.  If in your jaunts through
> various kinds of neighborhoods in LA, Stuart, 
> what will do you if someone tries to mug you?
> (Assume it's late at night and they can't see how
> the way that you carry yourself and the way that
> you dress precludes your being singled out.)
> Will you just tell them that you refuse to be a 
> victim?

No first of all I would calm myself, center myself,
and externalize myself. Then I would assess myself, my
assailent, and my surroundings. Based on my assessment
I would either threaten, negotiate, improvise, fight,
evade, or surrender. I cannot give you a meaningful
answer to your question, without knowing a myriad of
variables that make every confrontation unique. This
is called the fog of war. 

> What about when the police decide that you 
> look like the sort they'd like to rough up? 

Then my lawyer would have a field day and I would be
rich.

> > When your decisions (or indecision) put you in
> harms
> > way, you cannot shift the culpability to others.
> > Ultimate responsibility for the self lies with the
> > self. Maybe in the eyes of the law you can pin
> blame
> > on others, but not in the eyes of natural
> selection or
> > karma.
> 
> Yes, you *can* shift the responsibility to others!
> It should NOT be the fault of a little old lady that
> she gets mugged. We *should* be able to walk
> our parks at night.  Don't you agree that something
> terribly important has been lost because we cannot?

Fault and responsibility are not the same thing. She
has the responsibility to herself to defend herself.
It is not her fault if she fails in this. But it is
her fault if she does not try. Old ladies can pull a
trigger too you know. As far as having lost something,
you make it sound like the world used to be a better
safer place. At least the mugger won't eat her. 

> Now you're talking!  Yes, gang members should
> be rounded up and put into concentration camps.
> It could---believe it or not---make the parks
> safe to walk again at night.  It could prevent 
> more criminals and hoodlums from growing
> up if the role models for such behavior are
> removed.

It's not the gangsters who get shot, strung out on
crack, or go to prison that serve as the role models.
It's the gangsters on TV, the gangster rap stars with
their millions, and cinimatic gangsters like the
Godfather and Scarface that are their role models. Its
the hollywood gangster that carry big guns, drive
fancy cars, sleep with beautiful women, and live in
fancy houses that inspire them. You can't romanticize
crime in art without expecting imitation in life.  

>  It could be that people would---
> instead of fearing to go about their honest
> business---become afraid of harming, baiting,
> mugging, or raping others.
> Right now, most
> young criminals are fully cognizant that if they're
> caught, they get to move on to "higher education"
> in the prisons, bulk up, and become true 
> professionals.  This has transpired because we
> do not hate criminals sufficiently.

Yeah prison's a hoot. You should try it sometime. Once
you go to prison, your saleability on the job market
is nearly nil. There is no honest attempt at
rehabilitation by prisons. That is a decision by the
state and not the criminal.

> > Hitler called the jews rats to convince people
> > it was politically correct to do precisely what
> > you advocate.
> 
> Jesus Christ.  You compare the millions of
> perfectly innocent, harmless, and economically
> productive European Jews to our inner-city
> hoodlums, gangsters, and murderers?  I can
> hardly believe what I am reading!

Nobody is perfectly innocent and harmless except maybe
an infant or a liar.
 
> But you're wrong about hate.  It was right for the
> Jews to hate Hitler and the Nazis, right for
> Americans
> to hate Japs in the war, and right for any people to
> hate those who would destroy them.  If your emotions
> are not going to truly be on your side when the
> chips

You think so huh? Then why did the Lord of Hate end
his days in a bunker abandoned by all, hating even
himself enough to put a bullet in his own brain?

Hate is entropy. Love is spontaneous self-organizing
complexity.



Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Phillip K. Dick


 
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