From: matus@matus1976.com
Date: Mon Jun 16 2003 - 00:54:43 MDT
Eliezer said:
"It is *ridiculous* to suppose that *anyone* on the Extropians mailing list,
regardless of their other politics, supports Hussein. The prior probability
is so low that making such a comment is either an ad hominem debating tactic,
or human tribal thinking resulting in the sheer STUPIDITY and WARPING of
intellect necessary to distort one's probabilities THAT FAR away from the
simple COMMON SENSE that NOBODY on the Extropians mailing list is likely
to support Hussein! What is going on here cannot possibly be Bayesian
reasoning."
I would normally be the first to agree with you Eliezer, it would be extremely
odd and unlikely to suspect someone on the extropian list would support a
regime like that of Hussiens. However, I should note in this thread,
http://www.extropy.org/bbs/index.php?board=67;action=display;threadid=56165;st
art=15 (perhaps ironically included in the title is 'Twisted ethics prevelant
on extropy board')
Extropian Jeff Davis said of Vietnam (points I plan to debate with him in the
near future):
"[there is] No "enslavement" by the communists, just a different form of
government facing the difficult task of rebuilding a country savaged by
124 years of foreign dictatorships, and made all the more difficult by the
opposition of the political elite of the world's richest and most powerful
country. An elite filled with hostility by their defeat at the hands of a
people with the brains, discipline, and courage to pay the enormous price
required to "refuse" the tyranny of foreign dictators"
And
"All governments have laws for the maintenance of social order. Freedom of
speech has its limitations. I may not cry "fire!" in a crowded theater, nor
advocate the violent overthrow of the US government. Communists (and their
subsequent governments), under siege by the capitalists from before the ink
was dry on the "Manifesto", feel the need to protect themselves from foreign
subversion"
It seems Jeff is essentially shifting the blame of communist attrocities to
the capitalists. Anyway, for the relation to Iraq, I will further note that
Freedom house, a non-profit non-partison organization
http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/mrr2003.pdf
Gave Iraq its lowest political Rights rating, that of 7, its lowest Civil
Liberties rating, also 7, and a general status of 'Not Free'
Similiarly, Freedom house gave Vietnam a rating of 7,6, and Not free as well.
I should note that Freedomhouse has been ranking countries since the mid 60's,
and only recently did Vietnam escalate from the lowest possible rating of
7,7,NF to 7,6,NF, and Freedom House still considers Vietnam to be one of the
10 Worst regimes in the world.
Freedomhouse's web site describes the ratings systems.
No doubt other freedom ratings systems will return similiar results. Freedom
House essentially ranks Vietnam as terrible of a regime as Iraq, yet Jeff
clearly feels Vietnam is a legitimate govt.
Given that, it is not a stretch of imagination to feel that other members of
this list might for some reason feel Hussien's Iraq regime was legitimate.
Recently Humania insisted that 'Americas brutal form of capitalism should
be stopped' (paraphrasing, he has yet to elaborate on this statement) and
a few months ago I and others participated in a debate with an individual
who was clearly an anarcho-socialist. I can only fathom what intellectual
history these individuals underwent to come to these conclusions and still be
extropians, but there is no doubt that one can never be absolutely sure there
are no communist extropians, no dictator favoring extropians, and even no
luddite extropians (hey, who knows what people will internally justify)
I would suggest then not to be so quick to assume what idealogical
similiarities calling oneself an 'extropian' might bring. There is no doubt
reading Jeff other posts that he shares all the qualities we would consider
extropian, embracing technological advancement, prolonging human life,
encouraging the development of AI, etc. etc. However, a deep idealogical
rift is present among him and other members of this list, such as myself, and
no doubt many other intellectual chasms exist which both sides will find it
difficult to understand, though I am all for trying.
Regards
Michael Dickey
---- This message was posted by matus@matus1976.com to the Extropians 2003 board on ExI BBS. <http://www.extropy.org/bbs/index.php?board=67;action=display;threadid=56172>
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