From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Thu Feb 20 2003 - 13:13:34 MST
This message was prompted by Ron's recent message (perhaps
for no reason other than circumstance), but may be useful
from a "reputation" analysis standpoint.
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Mez and
converse with him for a couple of hours on extropic topics.
I would simply like to urge people to take him and/or his
comments very very seriously. I suspect his signal-to-noise
ratio is higher than most on the ExI list (including my own).
On Thu, 20 Feb 2003 Dehede011@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 2/20/2003 10:02:22 AM Central Standard Time,
> mez@apexnano.com writes: The US provides $3B in direct aid to egypt. That's
> second only to Israel.
Mez's points are very valid IMO -- the bottom line appears to be
that the U.S. bought Egypt. We have "bought" them through several
decades and several political administrations. Until we acknowledge
and/or resolve that situation it seems unlikely that a really
productive relationship may develop.
It seems (to me) that the U.S. bought off a resolution to the 1967
and/or Yom Kippur wars and has been paying ever since. The points
that Mez makes appear to be quite valid and open for debate
*what* are we getting *now* for our money?
The thread of who made statements becomes somewhat complex at
this point, so please pardon any misquotes/attributions...
> Lee Corbin suggested to you that you read the book by Hernando de
> Soto, The Mystery of Capitalism. I suggest you do so also.
I have not had the opportunity to read TMoC. Though I believe I
think and espouse many of the principles I would hope it promotes.
My impression of the position that Mez holds seems to *not* be
significantly different from mine or that I would expect to find
in TMoC.
So the question of why one would be urging Mez to read TMoC
remains open. A better question might be why in the hell is
the U.S. supporting an undemocratic regime Egypt to the tune
of 3+ billion dollars per year some 20 years after we bribed
our way into producing a peace seattlement.
> I would like to start you down that road, to understanding the US,
> with this thought -- can you believe we sort of stumbled into our success
> pattern and even today 98% of our people haven't got the foggiest idea what
> it was that we did (and are doing) that was right?
Ah, this is a *key* insight. And it is one that de Soto
or any other economist may not stumble across.
While capitalism and/or libertarianism are key elements that
I know people on the ExI list will swear up and down are the
essential components they may neglect another critical component.
By and large the U.S. population was self-selected!
Any economic/political discussion that leaves out the
genetic components of the U.S. population I will always
view as incomplete. The same may be viewed of the
Australian population (though my understanding of what
fraction of self-selection may have taken place there
is much less certain).
It is a fundamental question -- does one sacrifice
ones current security (limited as it may be) for
a completely unknown security in a foreign land?
In response to the above point (98% of our people don't
know what we are doing right) I would like to suggest
that the ancestors of many/most Americans selected
to take the risk. Americans are fundamentally a
"risk taking" population. Those who are descended
from people who did not immigrate are in the
"risk opposed" population.
And that may make all the difference with respect
the economic performance of a country.
It might have little or nothing to do with the
academic structures that support capitalism and
might have a lot to do with the people who actually
implement it.
Robert
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