From: Michael Wiik (mwiik@messagenet.com)
Date: Thu May 15 2003 - 16:39:09 MDT
Harvey Newstrom writes:
> In reality, we need to be specific. There are hundreds
> of subtopics relating to the war on Iraq. All sides were right about some
> and wrong about others. It make no sense to try to prove one group more or
> less right than another. Even if we gathered all the statistics, we would
> probably disagree on which predictions were more important than others. In
> any case, I believe that the accuracy of either side will have the obvious
> majority in correctness that believers always assume. Both sides rate their
> issues as important and dismiss other issues they don't care about
Despite the difficulties, such fine-grained measurement might be worth
trying. We could rank the issues. We could separate the issues into what
is practical versus the if-I-were-king scenarios. We could make charts
and graphs so we'd have better understanding of where we're coming from.
We could experiment with the mailing list protocols itself to aid in
clear separation of distinct issues.
We could do such because we're a group that supposedly has some
agreement with the group's charter. We could discuss the issues
generally, or we could discuss how they relate to the charter, or
perhaps other agreements (such as the U.S. Constitution) which we may
live under.
Whether attacking Iraq is/was a good thing or not may be discussed in
if-I-were-king mode, where anything goes, and where questions such as is
it good to kill ten people to save twenty can be gone over in
excruciating detail. But in the practical world, such talk is about
killing people.
Also, again in the practical world, supporting government wars of
aggression -- unless such is funded by voluntary contributions -- means
supporting government coercion of those who don't wish to participate.
The government takes enough of my money already, I don't need supposed
extropians/libertarians rooting for them to go ever deeper into debt by
building ever more expensive weaponry and bombing people with it.
-Mike
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