From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Mon Jan 20 2003 - 20:35:22 MST
I'm not going to get into the Samantha/Mike/Emlyn war/no-war
rhetoric.
I'll simply try to put a little personal spin on this from an "extropic"
perspective. One of my neighbors recently posted a "No Iraq War"
sign on their front lawn (these are very popular in Seattle which
is generally a green/pacifist haven).
I've been thinking about how one (I?) might respond to this.
I like rhetorical discussions, so I'm thinking about posting
a sign saying:
1) How many Iranians died due to the will of Saddam Husein?
2) How many Kuwaitis were killed or raped due to the will
of Saddam Husein?
3) How many Iraqis (i.e. his own citizens) were killed due to
the will of Saddam Husein?
4) Would you be comfortable with a person like Sadaam Husein
walking the streets of your neighborhood?
5) If you are unwilling to have Saddam Husein living next to
you then why are you comfortable having him live next to
human beings like you in Baghdad?
You may recall back a year or more ago, when I suggested what
I thought was a perfectly reasonable (utilitarian) solution in
the wake of 911 which was to nuke Afghanistan so as to completely
eliminate it as a potential source of unextropic vectors. I was
soundly whacked in the side of the head for even considering such
an option. Here is the key point -- I was at least considering
the utilitarian perspective (e.g. the needs of the many outweigh
the needs of the few).
When you are thinking about Saddam & Iraq you seriously have to
ask yourself whether one even gets up to that level (i.e. a
utilitarian tradeoff). We are talking about a country with
a population of only 24 million people and the 2nd largest
proven oil reserves (~112+ billion barrels) in the world.
Unless I'm doing my math wrong, that suggests that each
Iraqi citizen is worth ~$140,000 dollars (less production
costs). Why are not *all* Iraqis living in "palaces"?
I will throw down the gauntlet here. I will assert that
Saddam Husein is a demonstrably unextropic vector (to
the degree that he destroys the citizens of other countries
and holds back the development and advancement of the citizens
of Iraq.)
I am not fond of Bush, his politics, his strategies, etc.
In my opinion he is largely a turkey. *But* that should
not color the issue of whether or not Saddam is a really
bad actor who should be removed from the stage. Then the
debate becomes how best to accomplish that.
(Side note to Emlyn -- I believe we may be dealing with as
bad or worse actors in North Korea so there are some significant
prioritization concerns.)
This problem isn't going to go away. I think if the non-U.S.
people on the list will review the history -- the U.S. did
by and large try to stay out of both WWI and WWII. That
approach did not work. Furthermore, I think if one examines
the death tolls in those wars (e.g. the trench warfare or
the holocaust) one will observe that "doing nothing" is
essentially writing a prescription for millions of deaths.
So, to all "extropians", I ask this question --
"how do we prevent millions of deaths?"
Robert
[Side-note -- if you think this problem will go away then you
have really not studied population numbers (muslims vs.
christians), growth rates, and resources and allocations, e.g. oil
and water. Unless the singularity occurs very very soon, it
will get much much worse before it gets better.]
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