From: Brian D Williams <talon57@well.com>
>"Is the Death Penalty Extropian?"
>
>We welcome all comments on this, please state your reasons as
>thoroughly as you can.
It seems to me the death penalty has nothing to do with extropy, because extropy searches for ways to make life (i.e., complex adaptive systems) more abundant, prosperous, excellent, healthy, beautiful, practical, autonomous, satisfying, enjoyable, and self-organized. Consequently, extropy means to decrease, if not to eliminate, violent crime and violent criminals. No one can eliminate a crime which has already occurred. So, to act extropically entails prevention more than deterrence or correction.
But the death penalty receives plenty of good press because the prison industry, the just-us system, and corrupt politicians really do not have a motive for eliminating murder and other violent crimes -- crime puts Mercedes in their garages. Furthermore, extropians ought to find out what causes the illness that prompts people to work for the prison/punishment industry that perpetuates the problem.
We have the stars to reach, but we can't do it unless we detach from all dysfunctional death cultures, including those that support a death penalty. --J. R.
"Anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death, but nobody owns life." --Bill Burroughs, _Naked Lunch_