RE: Genocide sucks

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Fri Aug 01 2003 - 12:03:36 MDT

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    Emlyn writes about his very logical attack on genocide:

    > This is a stupid email to have to write.

    It was not. I myself wrote an email to this list last
    year explaining why racism is harmful and actually
    unrealistic. It's important to elucidate the reasons
    that go along with our feelings, and form themselves
    into an integral whole.

    > Genocide sucks.

    This is the sort of dumb phrase that does *not* advance
    understanding. Worse, had you not just written a clear
    and eloquent (even if overstated in a couple of places)
    rational analysis, then one would conclude from the
    sound bite that perhaps such rational analysis was not
    ready to hand, or perhaps not even possible.

    As for me, everything you said denouncing genocide
    denounces murder just as well. Genocide is a species
    of mass murder, and that's all. I very much deny that
    it is somehow worse than other forms of mass murder,
    because that is in effect suggesting that properties
    of mass murder exist that aren't so bad after all.

    > We have the whole space of wonderful, complex extropian
    > ideas to play in; can we drop this moronic crap?

    What I simply do not understand is how threatened you
    sound and feel. We *do* have convincing and thoughtful
    arguments rejecting a great many bad things, and we should
    not feel put upon to demonstrate from time to time.
    Some doubter may ask over and over why evolution works,
    and it would be a big mistake to say that enunciating
    the reasons was a waste of time.

    (Well, about the third time I would feel bored, I admit,
    but I would never feel threatened.)

    Lee



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