Re: hate and extropianism

From: Jacques Du Pasquier (jacques@dtext.com)
Date: Thu Oct 11 2001 - 05:18:06 MDT


Miriam English a écrit (11.10.2001/12:18) :
> Thoughts? Comments?

I would not focus on "hate" : this may appear as hate to you, but
that's not what it essentially is.

As human, we have a large programmable part. We can entertain diverse
ideas and let them influence our natural behaviour.

In fact, these ideas can be VERY unnatural, and we can take them VERY
seriously. Call this "radicality".

Programmability and radicality are not bad per se. But they account
for religious fundamentalism, sects, science (it is indeed radical and
far from the natural life -- which doesn't mean of course that I put
in on a par with religion according to other criteria, truth for
example), extropian quests, and many courses of actions that appear to
most people as unnatural or even mad.

And of course, more simply, the person may have plain old good reasons
for being angry, that you cannot / don't want to understand (so you
blind yourself and say : why all this hatred ??). Take ben Laden :
he's annoyed at the presence of US military bases in Saudi Arabia. The
fact is, the US impose them, and as they have "good intentions", they
don't see the problem. But it's a constraint, it's a force thing. So
if someone says : I don't fear the US, and I don't want them to mess
with my country, and he attacks the US, this is actually simple to
understand. Think William Tell.

This results from the fact that the interests of two parties, as they
perceive them (and sometimes as they really are), may happen to be
incompatible. You may try to find an agreement, or you may
successfully impose your force.

You may also change the way people are made so that they are, not
individuals pursuing their interests, but part of a big
world-individual, like social insects, and pursuing the world's
interest. When you have an engineer look on the world, I think you
cannot help but seeing that evolution has produced individuals that
are in intrinsic conflict of interests, and that they are not very
good building blocks for a peaceful world.

JAcques

P.S.: I wrote an essay related to 9/11 and more, however it's in
French (and part of it is specifically directed to French people) :

   Le 11 septembre et les cent ans à venir
   Notes pour nous
   I - Le court terme

   http://www.dtext.com/porte/article.php?sid=223

   (this is the intro, and you have a link to the article after the
   table of contents)



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