RE: Time.com asks you to vote for most dangerous country

From: Dickey, Michael F (michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com)
Date: Tue Feb 04 2003 - 08:04:07 MST

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    -----Original Message-----
    From: Amara Graps [mailto:amara@amara.com]

    MaxPlumm@aol.com:
    >I do not understand this statement. Why do you participate in a discussion
    >forum if you are not willing, or capable, to defend your positions to those
    >with whom you have discussion? There is nothing wrong with having "a peace
    >loving" attitude, my experience on this site leads me to believe it is
    >something shared by everyone on this forum.

    "Are you sure? I suggest you think more about this last sentence. I don't
    bother discussing at any depth my political philosophy or my
    criticism of the U.S. government here any more, even though I agree with
    most of Hubert's and Kai's and Dan's and Anders' and Damien's
    (etc.) words, because I attracted a cluster of aggressive posters who
    stereotyped and misinterpretted what I wrote, and it was tiring and
    unpleasant to have to defend even the smallest and simplest of statements. "

    Amara, I don't think that necessarily implies that the people who responded
    to you are not 'peace loving' though they could serve to be a little more
    calm, polite, and rational (as could I). But I do still believe they could
    be considered prefferring peace over non-peace. I am fortunate enough in my
    current daily employ that I have the time to read just about every message
    that comes through on this list, and from my perception it did seem that you
    received more than your fair share of 'nit picking' whenever you expressed
    an opinion. I am not sure why that is, though I think many of these
    problems come from this medium as a form of communication. Its very one
    dimensional compared to our normal routes of communication and as such is
    often open to misinterpretations, incorrect inferences, and just plain lack
    of clarity. We have no visual clues, no tones to pick up on, etc. Also, it
    is essentially anonymous. I often find that respondents (including myself,
    im sure) respond to what an author literally wrote instead of what the
    author intended, an intention that would have probably become clear to the
    responder if they took a moment to sit back and think about what the author
    said. Personally I experienced this much during my conversations on the
    continuation of conscioussness through destructive copying mechanisms,
    finding myself in a minority opinion with many people nit picking (it seemed
    to me) every single sentence instead of responding to the concept I was
    trying to relay. Combining the difficulties of this form of communication,
    the likely inability for me to obey my ideas clearly, and the tendancy for
    responders to 'jump the gun' occasionally, it could seem that many people on
    this list are brash, overbearing, or a little too confronontational.

    That being said, I would be considered by many to be a 'hawk' and at
    humania's implication not 'peace loving', furthermore, humania implied that
    the loss of Eugen Lietl to this list was the fault of us hawks and we should
    be ashamed of running him off. But I refuse to be held accountable to
    anyone's actions but my own, it is no fault of mine that Eugen felt it
    prudent to leave this list. I am saddened by the departure, and hope it is
    only temporary, but the implication that I should stifle my opinions for
    fear of offending or driving off others who are more valuable than I is
    insulting. If certain opinions are politically incorrect to present, than
    extropy should make that clear. And actually, they did...

    A few weeks back, Extropy Vice Prex Greg Burch specifically posted on the
    IRAQ discussions on this list

    "First, I've asked myself the question of whether the subject of the Iraq
    war has a sufficiently transhumanist or extropian component to warrant such
    a huge portion of the bandwidth here. In many ways, the subject is skew to
    extropians interests, since the potential combatants on both sides have so
    little sympathy for extropian ideas and ideals. But, ultimately I suppose
    there is sufficient relevance to the reason for this List's existence to
    tolerate such a large volume of discussion: To name just three, questions of
    war and peace on such a scale can effect that march of progress toward a
    transhuman world, the evolution of methods of warfare will be relevant to
    our interests, and the geopolitical alignment of the large interest groups
    in the world over the next few decades will certainly have an impact on our
    goals. "

    That disagreement here between 'hawks' and 'doves' essentially comes down to
    a disagreement on which actions are most extropic, are most beneficial to
    all of humanity and bringing about the singularity. Both sides say thiers
    is, while calling the other side 'non-extropic' yet the 'dove' camp insists
    that the hawks are nothing less than 'horny war mongerers' (to use humania's
    phrase) Does humania truly think I am 'horny for war'? Or is it possible
    that with our (the 'hawks') range of knowledge and experience we truly
    believe that in this event a pacifist diplomatic solution will result in a
    world less extropic and less friendly to the progress of humanity?

    Lee corbin posted a clear list of reasons why an extropian or person
    generally concerned with the well being of humanity might support such
    actions and why they might be considered extropic (and transhuman)

    (1) non-proliferation of WMD
    (2) diminishing support for terrorists
    (3) breaking monopolistic control of oil
    (4) punishing the abrogation of treaties and agreements
    (5) giving the evil and murderous Iraqi regime what it richly deserves
    (6) instilling fear in small dictatorships in general, and also respect for
    the West's values on human rights

    Damien recently posted (hopefully I am not misinterpreting his comments
    here)

    > the more
    > time goes on, the fewer reasons I can think of for not nailing
    > the Bollocks.

    "Me too, iff it can be done without terrible aggravated entropic
    consequences. (Lord Dehede has a conniption and falls in astonishment from
    his chair. :)...Iff"

    These are essentially the justifications that the 'hawks' have, contrary to
    being 'horny for war' we (at least I) believe based on my accumulated
    knowledge that this will have a net positive result, that we will remove a
    murderous tyrant from pow.... Bla bla bla, its all been said before, you
    know the drill.

    The same kind of conversations and emotions flared just post 9/11 and also
    going into the Afghan conflict, they subsided, a normal much more 'extropic'
    topics were again popular and dominated the threads.

    I personally think it unreasonable to consider the question of going to war
    with IRAQ as NOT having extropic consequences, and thus it would be natural
    to discuss on an extropian list.

    Bringing about a better world for all humans is not only going to happen
    through science and technology, but will necessarily require changes in
    politics, economics, and the humanities, and as such a concentrated effort
    to bring about that better world will necessarily require discussions of
    those topics.

    Regards to those whom do not all ready have me in their kill file as a
    'hawk' or 'aggressive poster',

    Michael Dickey

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