At 11:33 AM 14/09/2001 +0200, Anders Sandberg wrote:
>On Fri, Sep 14, 2001 at 03:12:55PM +1000, Damien Broderick wrote:
> > At 09:20 PM 12/09/2001 -0400, Jerry Mitchell wrote:
> > >and a culture based on
> > >reason.
> >
> > If only. Nobody I saw held high a copy of Karl Popper or John Stuart Mill.
> > What I've watched sprayed across the media has been ceaseless, inanely
> > desperate, desperately inane god-invoking, my true God can beat up your
> > false God, all the old medieval bullshit. So sad.
>
>Indeed. Much is of course simply due to the emotional distress, which
>causes a high level of arousal and hence inhibits creative thinking in
>favor of well-rehearsed quick actions - i.e. blasting somebody rather
>than taking the time to do a serious, scrupulously fair trial.
>
>Personally I see my role right now as scurrying around trying to protect
>the open society from its members: they can do far more damage than the
>terrorists ever did in the current culture of hate/fear. Right now a lot
>of very dangerous decisions that will have long term effects will be
>made, for example in encryption law.
>
>More people really should read Popper and Machiavelli. And we really
>need to debug the fight or flight response.
Ain't that the truth!
- Miriam
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Q. What is the similarity between an elephant and a grape?
A. They are both purple... except for the elephant.
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http://werple.net.au/~miriam
http://members.optushome.com.au/miriame
Virtual Reality Association http://www.vr.org.au
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