From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Fri Jan 04 2002 - 02:53:08 MST
Joe Dees wrote:
>
> Let's say that there are a hundred people on an island (let's call it Spaceship Earth); the majority, say 85, eat meat and vegetables, but realizing that their numbers are growing and that latrine space is overtaking cattle range and farmland, a few are working on ways to get our eggs out of a tiny basket before we all die of overpopulation-induced pollution and starvation. Let's say that the other fifteen have sworn fealty to a murderous Thugee ideology, and the only people they will not kill are their own. What are the 85 to do?
Actually, the minority eat meat and vegetables and consume most
of the resources and wealth, of course they arguably produce
much of it too. One option is to create more resource and
distribute them more broadly. And also it might be good to eat
less meat so not so much habitat is consumed feeding cattle. :)
Of course there is no 85% fine people who are protective and 15%
who are murderous. It is highly artificial.
> 1) Hunt down and convert, or, failing that, kill the 15 so that all may live their lives unendangered and those working on liberation may continue.
> 2) Join the 15 to avoid being murdered.
> 3) Blithely ignore the 15 and hope that one's own number does not come up.
> 4) Try to understand the killers as members of an alternative yet equally valid lifestyle and attempt constructive and nonjudgemental dialogue with them.
> 5) Assert that the 85 deserve such a fate because of real or imagined historical wrongs and await their fate with a sense that an incomprehensibele (or maybe comprehensible, but these would most likely convert) divine justice was being meted.
>
> I stand squarely with alternative #1. I see Samantha as embracing alternatives #4 or #5 or perhaps a syncretism of the two.
That is very dishonest. I do not claim that killers are of an
equally valid lifestyle. I do claim and am quite correct in
this that the terrorist have at least some claims of wrong-doing
that should be examined on their own merits regardless of the
source. Where we are in the wrong and can improve things we
should in the interest of greater peace and well-being for
working toward liberation. But that doesn't mean we condone
terrorism in the least or do not punish it.
And I most certainly never said or implied (5). My interest is
in getting to "liberation" (Singularity) with as many of our
fellow sentients on board as possible. I think you can get more
on board by addressing real grievances even while ending
barbaric acts of terrorism of all kinds. I believe you will
get more people on board by welcoming more people on board
whenver you can without inviting your destruction.
Is that clear enough?
- samantha
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