[A preliminary personal note regarding my own correspondence. My personal
communications systems have become overloaded in the last week: I have
hundreds of messages that I'd like to respond to, but won't be able to. I'
ve been responding to things out of order and will never get around to some
that I should have responded to - so if you've sent me a message and I haven
't responded, you might think about resending it with some kind of personal
reference in the subject line.]
First, I want to address a comment that Harvey made, that I think has been
echoed by gene and others, to the effect that the level of discussion here
regarding the nature of and response to the 911 attacks has not been as
well-informed and well-thought-out as we would have hoped. I agree, but I'm
not surprised. This list has attracted a majority of people from the
sci-tech side of the "great divide" since its inception and also attracts a
pretty young crowd. It also has a lot of subscribers who've read a lot of
science fiction, in which radical plot devices get thrown around like game
pieces in a simulation. None of these factors is conducive to engendering a
high level of discussion about social, political and cultural issues on
short notice in the face of an emotionally shocking crisis.
But even folks who've spent a lifetime studying history and culture, as I
have, and have read a lot of military history - as I have - have produced
some short-sighted and emotionally-driven writing in the last week. I
participate in another forum peopled entirely by folks who have studied a
LOT of history, especially military history, and it's taken days for the
level of discussion to begin to rise to the level one would expect from a
group of extremely well-informed experts on the relevant subject matter.
(An interesting side-note, in that forum some of the most bloodthirsty
initial reactions came from some of the most left-liberal participants . .
.)
So, I'm ready to personally forgive basically any kind of idiocy that's
been expressed in the last week. What's important is where we eventually
end up in terms of ACTION, not our initial expressions of rage or our first
poorly thought-out musings. In my own mind and heart, I've extended a kind
of amnesty to my friends, and I urge everyone else to do the same. I have
reasons to believe that cool heads and good hearts will prevail. I hope to
write more about that as soon as I can find the time . . .
Greg Burch
Vice-President, Extropy Institute
http://www.gregburch.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:50 MDT