John Clark wrote,
> Bin Laden is a hero in much of the Islamic world but that's also a
> society that disapproves of alcohol and is astronomically puritanical,
> so what we need is someone who's good at PhotoShop. What we
> need is a picture of Bin Laden drinking a martini with his arm
> around a beautiful girl in a bikini, or better yet a gay looking young
> man in a Speedo.
Spike Jones wrote,
> We have really good printing technology. We can print and
> bind books for almost nothing. How about if we print truckloads
> of korae, except each one with one altered verse? If we get
> clever, we could print a million of them, each with a different
> altered verse, bind them with pre-aged covers, so they could
> not be distinguished easily from the originals without reading
> the entire thing, carefully. If those get into circulation, print a
> new set with the old altered verse plus an additional altered verse.
> In each case these altered verses reverse the meaning of the original.
> I figure one cruise missile aimed at scorched and barren desert
> would cost about the same as one truckload of korae. spike
This is ludicrous. Extropians are believers in TRUTH. Yet every time we
have any sort of threat to our ideals, many people on this list start
inventing all sorts of subterfuge and lies. The archives are full of ideas
on infiltrating groups, committing crimes and blaming them on someone else,
issuing false statements attributed to someone else, starting false rumors,
etc.
Using false statistics, false stories, and false methods is unacceptable.
We do not need to invent reasons to oppose these atrocities. We do not need
to lie to people to convert them to the truth. We do not need to trick
people into accepting our views. We do not need to falsify evidence to make
our enemies appear guilty.
Anyone who stoops to these anti-Extropian activities is a False Extropian.
Such a person claims that truth, science and logic are the best policy,
while they secretly resort to deceit, propaganda and cheating to try to
further their cause. Such people must actually doubt that the Extropian
Principals will lead to the greater good, and they actually believe that our
enemies' methods are a superior path to victory. Such people and activities
are actually working against Extropian ideas and are promoting un-Extropian
activities.
I do not want to see these kinds of activities identified with the Extropian
movement. As an amusing comment or intellectual exercise, these ideas are
interesting to develop. But let's be clear: Spreading lies, rumors, false
documents, false pictures, false statistics and trickery is NOT an Extropian
activity. Even when furthering "our" goals over "their" goals, these are
not part of any Extropian methodology.
-- Harvey Newstrom <http://HarveyNewstrom.com> <http://Newstaff.com>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:47 MDT