From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Thu Jul 17 2003 - 16:52:19 MDT
On Wednesday 16 July 2003 19:49, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>
> "Most Westerners, living in affluent conditions, put high value on
> democratic behavior of institutions, on freedom of speech, on human
> rights. People in the DPRK may set priorities differently."
>
In particular, they might see getting out of seeming perpetual famine and
wrecked economy as somewhat more immediately compelling.
> As many know, I was soundly beaten down after 911 for suggesting
> that the solution to the problem (of Osama) was to simply to nuke
> Afghanistan on the basis of utilitarian arguments. I'll simply
> note that nearly 2 years later the U.S. hasn't solved the Osama problem
> and it has probably managed to alienate several 10's of millions
> of people (if not more) by our actions over the last 2 years.
> [In case it isn't clear -- what the U.S. *is* doing doesn't seem
> to be working very well...]
>
Somehow I don't think that frying millions of people would have been a better
solution.
> Obviously given the recent DPRK announcement that they have processed
> more fuel rods for nuclear weapons raises some interesting questions.
>
> Some that come to my mind are:
> a) How do extropians/transhumanists deal with very strong cultures
> with very non-western priorities? (Be they through cultural history
> or brain-washing?) [This relates to the question of how does one
> interface with a culture that "sets priorities differently". Is
> one going to "brain-wash" citizens of the DPRK that western perspectives
> are more correct than those they have grown up with their entire lives?]
>
Well, N Korea is not exactly a "strong culture". The culture and country is a
tragic mess. On the large question though, democracy and free-markets
presuppose certain shared understandings imho that simply do not exist in
much of the world. I don't believe attempting to force democracy and
free-markets without that foundation will result in much good. It typically
has not in places it has been tried thus far.
> b) How does one deal with the entropic issue that the diplomatic
> route may ultimately be extremely wasteful? Though I'm sure Nick
> will not appreciate my citing his paper in this context, his
> "Astronomical Waste: The Opportunity Cost of Delayed Technological
> Development" paper
> http://www.nickbostrom.com/astronomical/waste.html
> helps to shape the discussion.
>
Well, I don't think that running over other cultures and peoples in a rush to
increase technological development is particularly moral or safe. I think it
leads to a very unstable world situation and a lot of diversion of resources
to fight and defend against such instabilties.
> The numbers speak for themselves -- 10^14 potential human lives
> per second of delayed interstellar colonization (minimum).
>
We are talling "potential human lives" here? Sheesh. Some of the
anti-abortion folks must be thrilled. It is bizarre to me to talk about
some spacious number of hypothetical human (?) lives depending on
interstellar colonization (?!) when we seem all too willing to ignore
hundreds of millions who are living lives of great misery right in our own
backyard right here and now.
> So lets see,
> Afghanistan (pop: 28m), Iraq: (pop: 25m), N. Korea (pop: 22m)
>
> So we could eliminate the problems distracting us from making
> progress at the cost of < 10^8 lives -- compared with 10^14
> lives *per second* while we keep debating how to resolve the
> problems...
>
I am sorry to see that you have not apparently learned just how monstrous this
type of thinking is and continues to be. Every bloody tyrant in history has
claimed a glorious future absolved him from responsibility for mass
slaughter. I will be very sorry if you are at least hypothetically in their
camp.
> Ok, I *know* you are going to rake me over the coals again.
> Don't bother (been there done that) -- I'd rather see strong
> arguments that justify a suboptimal extropic vector (perhaps
> one has to sacrifice optimal paths to practical considerations).
Optimal must be defined in terms of what is, not what may be if there is to be
any sort of optimal path from *here* to any *there* we might dream of.
> It is just starting to look like each U.S. citizen is on the
> hook for about ~$350 this year for activities in Iraq and
> we already have a huge sunk cost (in nuclear weapons) in
> the means to eliminate that expense (ignoring Afghanistan
> & N. Korea).
There is an easy solution. Get the hell out of Iraq and don't do anything
that idiotic again. Spend the same dollars toward making the world actually
work for its people and perhaps we can come to less dark hearted solutions.
- samantha
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